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I have been thinking about the past week and trying to connect dots and making sense of the Palin situation. Two stories that broke the night before she said she wasn't going to run really stick in my mind. Nicole Wallace told TIME that Sarah Palin was the inspiration for a female VP candidate who was crazy and mentally ill. Roger Ailes came out and said that the only reason he hired Palin is because she is hot and got ratings. Both stories were equally disgusting. My question to all of my good FReinds out there is this. Do you...

Nicolle Wallace knows her politics. She served as White House communications chief under George W. Bush and also worked as a senior advisor on the McCain-Palin 2008 campaign. Her second novel, It's Classified, explores what would happen if a woman were plucked from relative obscurity and elected Vice President of the United States — only to find herself completely unprepared for the job. Wallace talked to TIME about the problem with likable politicians, why everyone in the White House eats constantly and her character's obvious similarity to Sarah Palin. This novel reads like a lighthearted novel for people interested in...

In 2008, John McCain's campaign team discussed whether they should let Sarah Palin be sworn in as vice-president if they were to win the election, according to campaign staffer Nicolle Wallace. "There certainly were discussions -- not for long because of the arc the campaign took -- but certainly there were discussions about whether, if they were to win, it would be appropriate for her to be sworn in," Wallace tells Time's Claire Suddath. In her new novel, It's Classified, Wallace has a character -- a mentally ill female vice-president -- which she says is based on her experience working...

If liberal New York Times columnist Joe Nocera can apologize for comparing Tea Party activists to terrorists, then The Washington Post can and should apologize for pretending that Nicolle Wallace is someone who should be taken seriously by Republicans. The Post ran a Wallace article on Sunday claiming that Michele Bachmann is too conservative to be president, in part because of her association with the Tea Party. Wallace was headlined as the “former Bush aide” and adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign. The article was the lead in the popular Post Sunday “Outlook” section of opinion. Bachmann, wrote Wallace, “holds views...

In her new tell-all memoir, Bristol Palin, daughter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, talks about her life and her loves. And apparently the 20-year-old has no love lost with Middletown. Palin’s autobiography, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far,” hit stores June 21. In the book, she dishes on everything from her early brushes with sex and alcohol to her on-again, off-again relationship with the father of her child, Levi Johnston and her drama with Meghan McCain, daughter of former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. But tucked amidst those revelations are a few jabs at the town...

GOP megastar Sarah Palin’s bus tour rumbled toward the Hub last night, driving into a Republican Party furor as her headline-grabbing East Coast trip threatened to overshadow today’s presidential announcement by party front-runner Mitt Romney. “She will certainly be in New Hampshire to rain on Mitt’s parade,” wrote Massachusetts GOP spokesman Tim Buckley in an e-mail obtained by the Herald. Bay State GOP officials confirmed yesterday that Buckley wrote the e-mail, but said it was a private exchange and not an official communication. “I guess she blew in with the storm,” sniffed state House minority leader Bradley H. Jones (R-North...

<p>Twisting the political knife in a bit further Palin said that appealing to the tea party will be a “big challenge� for Romney.</p> <p>Romney’s campaign did not respond to an email seeking a response to Palin’s comments.</p> <p>Palin’s jab is a clear sign that even if she chooses not to run for president, she will almost certainly be a major factor in the race. That’s not great news for the frontrunners since Palin delights in being a thorn in the side of the establishment.</p>

Mitt Romney got beaten up by a girl yesterday. OK, so it’s not PC to call the former governor of Alaska a girl, but you know what I mean. Sarah Palin big-footed Romney big-time, not to mention Rudy Giuliani, who last night was in Dover, N.H., where he couldn’t have gotten arrested even if he’d tried. But for Palin, yesterday was mostly about putting a pie in Mitt’s face. As one of my listeners put it: “Romney has RomneyCare. Palin has no PalinCare. Advantage: Palin.” Poor Mitt. She hit him over the head like he was one of those giant...

According to Chris Matthews, Sarah Palin is the most divisive figure since Abraham Lincoln "caused" the Civil War. In an odd historical analogy, the Hardball host marveled at Palin's bus tour: "Leading off tonight, civil war on the right. Not since the election of Abraham Lincoln has a Republican caused such a war." The anchor frothed, "Sarah Palin went right to New Hampshire, serving as a human grenade, blowing up his announcement by saying Romney's health care is a total violation of Tea Party beliefs."

Comparison of results of a national PPP poll of GOP presidential contenders released on May 10 when Huckabee, Trump and Daniels were still in the race vs. today's poll post-Huckabee, post-Trump and post-Daniels showing the net difference for each candidate. Brackets May 10. (Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman were not polled on May 10) OVERALL MODER SOMEWH CONS VERY CONS ROMNEY 16 (18) 26(23) 19 (20) 11 (15) PALIN 16 (12) 8 (13) 15 (9) 20 (13) PAWLENTY 13 (5) 15 (4) 15 (6) 12 (6) BACHMANN 9 (7) 5 (0) 6 (5) 13 (12) GINGRICH 9 (13) 7 (7)...

Trying to play up the idea of chaos in the Republican 2012 field, on Thursday's NBC Today, chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd argued Sarah Palin's bus tour making a stop in New Hampshire on Thursday was "a little bit of a slap in Mitt Romney's face" on the day he was planning to announce his candidacy. Co-host Meredith Vieira had asked Todd about Romney's upcoming announcement and claimed the former Massachusetts governor would have to "steal back the spotlight" from Palin. Todd declared that Palin was "not even giving him [Romney] one news cycle to make his case."

Her strategy of not revealing the stops on her “one nation” tour? Crazy brilliant. Who needs a campaign kickoff when you can get a week’s worth of attention hiding on a bus. Romney, meanwhile, will be lucky to get a few hours of the spotlight with the more traditional “I’m running for president” speech today. The former Massachusetts governor has been running for years, anyway, so it’s barely even news. The only news will be how much Palin disrupts Romney’s event by coming to New Hampshire at the same time. Palin seems to understand what other candidates don’t right now....

Has anybody else been told not to run for President, besides Palin, ever? Palin been told not to run by the media and by Conservatives. In the last 40 years, who else has been told they would be a better kingmaker?

"The bottom line is Sarah Palin is not going to run for president," says a Republican adviser close to front-runner Mitt Romney. "She's making money, she's moved on, she's kind of an entertainer rather than a politician. She still has some sway with the grass roots, but she is not going to run." "I don't think she's going to run," says a Republican close to Tim Pawlenty. "She has faded a lot in the last few months. I look at what she's doing now and say that she's found a way to get back in the story." Maybe these representatives...

"The more people try to take her out, she only becomes emboldened, strengthened, it makes her such a martyr," said Mrs Wallace, who has recently written a thriller called Eighteen Acres, drawn in part from her experiences on the bid for the White House of John McCain and Mrs Palin, his running mate. "She has very obvious deficiencies that will reveal themselves as the nominating contest gets closer," she told The Daily Telegraph, adding: "Let her shoot her moose or whatever the heck she does on her [television] show, it will all work out." ...... "What's troubling is she has...

Nicolle Wallace, a former colleague of Sarah Palin, has become the latest senior Republican publicly to round on the darling of the Tea Party movement, saying that her opponents should avoid criticising her directly and let her expose her own multiple flaws. SNIP "She has very obvious deficiencies that will reveal themselves as the nominating contest gets closer," she told The Daily Telegraph, adding: "Let her shoot her moose or whatever the heck she does on her [television] show, it will all work out." SNIP "What's troubling is she has missed an opportunity to go beyond the platitudes and deepen...

It's no secret that [Nicolle] Wallace is no fan of Sarah Palin. But the former Bush communications director and McCain campaign aide perhaps took things to another level with her attack on Palin on today's Morning Joe. Wallace was on to comment on Joe Scarborough's astonishing claim of yesterday, noted here, that "all" conservatives and talk radio hosts with whom he's spoken are harshly critical of Palin off the record, but are afraid to express their views publicly. Wallace opined that if it ever looked as if Palin were close to copping the Republican presidential nomination, many GOP leaders who...

Saying that a woman engaged in feline fisticuffs might be called sexist. But when that woman actually accuses another of seeking to "claw" critics, illustrating her assertion with a cat-like hand gesture, well . . . It's no secret that Nicolle Wallace is no fan of Sarah Palin. But the former Bush communications director and McCain campaign aide perhaps took things to another level with her attack on Palin on today's Morning Joe. [snip] Wallace unleashed a hail of criticism of her own: * "Mistakes were made [by McCain in choosing Palin]." * "Her troubling deficiencies." * "Her incredible cynicism,...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

On Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith discussed the ‘Potomac Primaries’ with Democratic Strategist Dee Dee Meyers and Republican CBS Political Analyst Nicole Wallace, who said of John McCain’s conservative critics: "The more that we see kind of the crazies like Ann Coulter out attacking John McCain, the better Republicans feel about their chances in the general election."

Nicolle Wallace on Bill Maher just admitted that she was no fan of the Tea Party. Now I knew that I was not a fan of hers because of comments she made about Our Sarah, but had no idea she was so openly against the Tea Party. Nicolle laughed hysterically at every vulgar,rude slanderous remark that Maher made about basically ALL the Tea Party candidates. She mocked COD about the first amendment? We all know that COD was only stating the fact that the phrase separation of Church and State was not in the Constitution. Nicolle was just hateful. I...

It's not looking good for Vanity Fair when CNN's Peter Hamby has joined liberals such as Ben Smith, Dave Weigel, race-baiter Charles Blow, and Kirsten Powers in denouncing the Vanity Fair hit piece. Hamby tweets: @benpolitico is right re: VF article. I was w/ Palin for entire VP bid. never got a hint that she "lashed out at the slightest provocation" Meaning

There were other things I wanted to write about this evening, but now I feel like I’m obligated to write a society-page feature because the Drama Queen (Ken Mehlman) decided to make her debut at the cotillion. (...) Excuse my derision, and denounce me as suffering from “homophobia” — Can I get an SSI disability check for that? Would Medicaid pay for treatment? — if that satisfies your craving for a sense of moral superiority. You’re not going to guilt-trip me into pulling punches. I’m heaping the most vicious ridicule I can on this twerp for a reason: To discourage...

Former Republican National Committee chairman and Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman has announced publicly that he is gay, CBS News chief political consultant and politics editor for The Atlantic Marc Ambinder reports. "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," Mehlman said. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I...

Former Bush II operative and RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. People are talking about it from almost every imaginable angle. Why was he Republican? Why did the Republicans want him? How did such an allegedly anti-gay party as the GOP ever allow him to reach such high office? But they don’t ask the important question: Why is this a news story? In these United States, around one or two percent of the public is gay. So one or two of every hundred people isn’t straight. Why on earth should an announcement about one of them – someone whom less...

Here is video of CBS News Anchor Katie Couric during the 2008 Presidential Campaign being caught on video mocking Sarah Palin and her family during a practice session just days before the Republican National Convention. Couric is seen mocking the name of Palin’s son “Track” after reading his name, and later doing the same with the name of Palin’s hometown – Wasilla, Alaska. The video is instructive in that it shows the behind-the-scenes bias against Palin that was actually quite obvious during broadcasts as well.

Mitt Romney tweets: "TIME says unnamed advisors disparaged @SarahPalinUSA. Anonymous numbskulls. She’s proven her smarts; they’ve disproven theirs."

Even as the starting bell rings for the first round of the Republican presidential free-for-all, we’ve got a couple of anonymous Mitt Romney advisors coming off the top rope, aiming elbow smashes at Sarah Palin’s back. They said she’s “not a serious human being” and “if she’s standing up there in a debate, and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she’s in trouble.” This childish and incoherent nonsense does a lot more damage to Mitt Romney than Sarah Palin. What, exactly, are the criteria for being considered a “serious human being?” Should she just give up her half-hearted...

Sarah Palin's recent web video making a pitch to conservative women may have again shifted the political spotlight to the former governor of Alaska, but more than a half dozen other GOP hopefuls are toying seriously with a presidential run this summer. ......................................................... Still, few express much regard for Palin's ultimate chances. One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner, says of Palin, "She's not a serious human being." Another Romney intimate warns, "If she's standing up there in a debate and the answers are more than 15 seconds long, she's...

Huckabee’s taken potshots at her from time to time, but between this fusillade from unnamed Mitt advisors and the furious counterattack on Romney at Conservatives 4 Palin, I’d say that the 2012 primary is now, at long last, officially on. In the immortal words of Greg Stillson, “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah.” Still, few express much regard for Palin’s ultimate chances. One adviser to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and, by traditional standards, the putative 2012 frontrunner, says of Palin, “She’s not a serious human being.” Another Romney intimate warns, “If she’s standing up there in a debate and...

Going Rogue brims with testimony about Palin's Christian faith. Its opening pages relate how Palin's daughter Piper literally became the poster child for the antiabortion group Alaska Right to Life by posing for a picture with "pretend angel wings fastened to her soft shoulders." The book's final paragraph, meanwhile, reads like an altar call, the part of a church service when pew sitters are invited to commit their lives to Christ. "I do know there is a God," the former Alaska governor writes. "My life is in his hands. I encourage readers to do what I did many years ago,...

Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

Sarah Palin says she was blindsided by Katie Couric's devastating interviews last year because John McCain's aides lulled her into thinking the CBS anchorwoman was a fan. In Palin's new book, "Going Rogue," the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee reveals that her handlers talked up Couric as a working mom - just like her - who was struggling with low self-esteem and even lower ratings. Couric liked and admired her, advised campaign media honcho Nicolle Wallace. The interviews would be a nice favor. The scouting reports were so sympathetic, Palin writes, that that she almost began to "feel sorry" for...

HER TURN! Fri Nov 13 2009 07:27:12 ET Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin Chapter Four; Section 8, pages 255-257 By the third week in September, a “Free Sarah” campaign was under way and the press at large was growing increasingly critical of the McCain camp’s decision to keep me, my family and friends back home, and my governor’s staff all bottled up. Meanwhile, the question of which news outlet would land the first interview was a big deal, as it always is with a major party candidate. From the beginning, Nicolle [Wallace] pushed for Katie Couric and...

Levi Johnston, not content with just a GQ spread, heads to Condé Nast sibling Vanity Fair to offer a first person account: "Me and Mrs. Palin." The magazine posted a couple excerpts early this morning, including Johnston's account of how Palin considered keeping Bristol's pregnancy a secret. Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret — nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. She told me that once Bristol had the baby she and Todd would adopt him. That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Sarah kept mentioning...

In the mail this morning was an advanced copy of Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson's extremely well-reported history of the 2008 presidential campaign: The Battle for America is what the two veteran Posties have called it. The book will be published on August 4; Balz and Johnson will talk about it on Meet the Press on August 2. There are plenty of scoops, and I can't resisting sharing just one involving a critical phase of the campaign in early October of 2008. Whose idea was it for Gov. Sarah Palin to attack Barack Obama as a guy who "pals around...

Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt. The episode in question began when an investigative report published on the left-leaning Web site Salon.com raised questions about Palin's relationship with members of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) when she was mayor of Wasilla....

The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign. At issue is a question that was never resolved following McCain’s loss in November: Who in the McCain campaign was secretly trashing Sarah Palin to the press?

Alaska's lipstick-wearing pit-bull is a "Little Shop of Horrors." That's how one longtime friend and campaign trail companion of John McCain, the vanquished 2008 GOP presidential nominee, described veep nominee Sarah Palin. In an expansive story in the August edition of Vanity Fair, a slew of senior members of McCain's campaign team told reporter Todd S. Purdum that they suffer a kind of survivor's guilt following the 2008 presidential election.

Next time you’re debating Bob Shrum and want to lure him into making ugly and over-the-top attacks, just remind the audience of his unblemished 0-8 record of having lost every presidential race on which he’s worked . . . This morning’s Today offered a prime example of the phenomenon. Nicolle Wallace, former Communications Director to Pres. George W. Bush, made passing reference to Shrum’s failed work on behalf of John Kerry in 2004. A clearly stung Shrum responded by referring to her as “pathetic” and accusing her of possible “foolhardiness.” For good measure, Shrum called Wallace’s claim that Dems are...

University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication presenting CBS “Evening News” anchor Katie Couric with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Journalism In a word, preposterous. The question I have is if she is getting this award for journalistic excellence, or for fulfilling her role in the liberal political agenda machine? The interview did, in fact, have a huge impact on the election. She achieved the result the Democrat’s desired. Imagine, if you will, if one of her softballs to Obama had garnered similar devastating results and had brought down his candidacy. Would there have been any...

Remember when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused journalist Katie Couric of "exploiting" their disastrous exchange — the one in which Palin couldn’t name some of running mate John McCain’s policies? Couric’s work obviously paid off, because the 52-year-old today received the prestigious Walter Cronkite Award for the exchange. The Baltimore Sun elaborates: "Couric, who weathered one of network TV’s most criticized anchor-desk launches when she took over from interim anchor Bob Schieffer, was named winner of the University of Southern California’s Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in TV Political Journalism for her focused and illuminating interviews with Republican vice-presidential candidate...

Even some former Bush aides are smitten with the new president. Now, will lefties let the GOP inside the tent? No American could watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama this week and not feel pride in the splendor and strength of our democracy. No one watching could miss the drama of this moment of challenge and self-examination for our nation—of seeing a man so well-suited to meet the expectations of the office he fills. The presidency is now within reach for any man who dares to dream big enough. It is no longer an office attainable by members of...

Article in an non-partisan fem website seems pretty believable, despite it being another anonymous source. "Today, a source close to John McCain’s presidential campaign revealed exclusively to wowOwow that it was two stylists who often do work for CBS journalist Katie Couric who were hired by former CBS News political analyst and McCain senior strategist, Nicolle Wallace, around the time of the Republican National Convention. Wallace had worked for CBS Evening News until May 2008 when she left to work on the McCain campaign. Said the source, "They weren’t given any budget or parameters. They just told the stylists to...

I worked for Jeb Bush. Sarah Palin reminds me a lot of Jeb Bush, who was very hands on. He was always in direct contact, email-wise, with reporters. He'd often get back to them before I'd get back to them. She's like that. She's very hands on. Reminds me of my time working for Jeb Bush. She doesn't like a lot of bureaucracy. She gets on her email and deals directly with press and the staff and it's very, very impressive. Very appealing. She works harder than anyone I’ve known in politics. She’ll go until one or two in the...

Wow -that is some savage cutting & gutting that Nicole Wallace has just performed upon Sarah Palin. Nicole & I crossed swords once, during the Harriet Miers nomination battle. Watching what Nicole can do when she is seriously annoyed, I am grateful that I got away from that fight with nothing worse than a few bumps and bruises .... That said: Some of these stories do not ring quite true to me, especially the story about Palin allegedly not realizing that Africa was a continent rather than a country. Apparently she did not grasp that "South Africa" was not the...

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterOn Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith discussed the ‘Potomac Primaries’ with Democratic Strategist Dee Dee Myers and Republican CBS Political Analyst Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush Administration Communications Director, who said of John McCain’s conservative critics: "The more that we see kind of the crazies like Ann Coulter out attacking John McCain, the better Republicans feel about their chances in the general election." This attack upon conservatives critical of McCain, who include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, and others, was prompted by Harry Smith asking about Mike Huckabee’s continued support in...

<p>One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.</p> <p>"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.</p>

Let the games begin, release the hounds, throw Sarah under the bus....The unholy Washgington insider trinity, comprised of the MSM, the Dems, and the RINO's, is not going to forgive or forget that Sarah nearly stole their thunder and represents the single greatest threat to the status quo. I expect the attack will come in two forms. One will to Quayle her, that is to make her into some kind of bimbo unworthy of actually being taken seriously. The other way will to paint her as the unloyal and kiniving saboteur that was responsible for McCain's failure. Both will be...

"The Commission’s report makes the case for the policies that President Bush has been pursuing in the War on Terror and eliminates any doubt that the best defense against the threat of global terror is a strong offense. While President Bush welcomed the report and praised its conclusion that we are safer today but still have more work to do, our opponent attacked the administration’s progress and leadership in the War on Terror, breaking his own pledge to focus on 'bipartisan solutions.' On a day when Democrats and Republicans stood together for additional reforms and continued progress in making America...