Sarah Palin cannot contain her joy at news her nemesis Katie Couric faces lawsuit over documentary about guns in America.

Courtesy of that mean girls from Middle School's Facebook page:  

Shooting back against Katie Couric's deceptive presentations in a gun documentary is good news. 

It's a shame it takes a lawsuit to force journalists to acknowledge their unethical practices, but if their clouded conscience lets them sleep at night amidst feeding the public lies, then litigation must awaken them to the public's right and expectation to read, see and hear truth. 

Let's be thankful the parties suing "The Perky One" have sharp people in their corner with the tools - and the guts - to go after those who've not been held accountable for far too long. 

- Sarah Palin

Palin then links to some super pro-gun website that I am afraid to click on as it might accidentally go off and kill someone.

However the story that has her nips super hard like little bullets, is the news that Katie Couric and her partner are being sued for 12 million dollars:

Katie Couric and "Under the Gun" director Stephanie Soechtig are facing a $12 million defamation lawsuit for their roles in allegedly "misleading" edits made in their 2016 documentary. 

Virginians Citizens Defense League (VCDL) is taking Couric and her director to court for edits they say made VCDL members appear stumped by Couric's gun control questions, when in fact they were not. 

A clip in the film appears to show nine seconds of silence after Couric asks them, "If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?"

Now Couric has already acknowledged this deceptive editing and apologized for it as well: 

“When I screened an early version of the film with the director, Stephanie Soechtig, I questioned her and the editor about the pause and was told that a ‘beat’ was added for, as she described it, ‘dramatic effect,’ to give the audience a moment to consider the question. When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question, I went back and reviewed it and agree that those eight seconds do not accurately represent their response….I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously.”

Yeah well that's not enough. After all this is the pro-gun crowd we are talking about so they want to see blood.

So with the backing of the gun lobbyists and ammosexuals they are planning to not only punish Couric and her partner for what is a rather minor editing choice, but also to send a message to anybody else who would dare to challenge their dominance over American culture.

Remember guns good, government control bad. (Unless of course we are talking about a woman's right to control her own reproductive process that is.)

By the way here is the trailer for the curious among you.

Yep, looks like something I DEFINITELY want to watch.

Thanks for reminding me about this Sarah. 

Sarah Palin is still going after Brian Williams like a dog with a bone.

You know I was thinking about what might have possibly given such hard on to go after Williams, and my bet is that it goes ALL the way back to October of 2008.

You remember this interview, right?

(Did you notice the question about her medical records at the 1:39 mark? Yeah, whatever happened to those? And no this does not count.)

This of course was after Palin's disastrous Katie Couric interview when the McCain campaign tried to gain some control over Palin's ignorance and habit of saying whatever stupid thing popped into her pea brain.

So during this interview Palin is working hard to hold it together, and yet she cannot help but complain about the media. She also suggests that people are making things up about her family.

Really?

Personally I think this is when Palin REALLY started to despise the media and perhaps that it why certain news people, like Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Brian Williams occupy a permanent place on her shit list.

Katie Couric turns her sights to gun violence.

Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter:  

Katie Couric and Stephanie Soechtig, who tackled childhood obesity in this year's documentary Fed Up, are setting their sights on an even bigger hot-button issue: gun violence. 

"Much like Fed Up traced the history of the obesity epidemic, this film will trace the history of guns and their impact on society," says Couric, currently Yahoo's global news anchor. "We hope we can deconstruct this complex issue and give people a better understanding of existing and proposed gun laws and take a closer look at one of the most polarizing issues of our time." 

Soechtig, who co-wrote and directed Fed Up, tells THR she will helm the new doc, which will trace U.S. gun-control laws and gun violence as well as the backstory of the NRA. Soechtig, 37, and Couric, 57, have been working on initial research and plan to have Couric produce, conduct interviews and narrate, as she did with Fed Up, which premiered at Sundance in January, grossed $1.5 million in theaters via Radius-Weinstein Co and is available on iTunes and Amazon.

I would actually expect this documentary to do better than Fed Up did in theaters simply because gun violence is in the news far more frequently and people are paying very close attention to it right now.

I know I will promote the hell out of it, and embed clips as soon as they become available.

Some might say that Couric cannot really have much of an impact, but all I have to say to that is I would not put anything past somebody who could stop the Palin momentum in 2008 with a mere handful of interviews the way she did.

Look out NRA. Katie's coming!

The folks at Pluto.TV have come up with their own answer to The Sarah Palin Channel.

Courtesy of Video Ink:  

Shortly after the launch of Sarah Palin’s subscription digital video channel with Tapp, Pluto.TV has come up with an online video hub that offers a counterpoint. Their comedy channel, dubbed “#SarahFailin” (ch. 507 on Pluto.TV), hosts a steady stream of Palin’s best, worst TV moments. 

From her infamous Katie Couric interview during her 2008 vice presidential run to clips from Palin parodies created by Funny or Die, The Young Turks, and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” #SarahFailin has something for everyone who considers the Alaska-based political personality somewhat of a joke.

The channel will offer 24 hours of Sarah Palin, seven days a week, so you would think this would be a Palin-bots dream. Except that the channel finds the MOST embarrassing moments of Palin's public life and runs it in a constant loop. (To be honest while preparing this post I actually got sidetracked watching a segment on CNN of Palin being called out for something stupid she wrote on Facebook.  Very entertaining.)

You can watch for yourself by clicking here.

Hmm, I wonder if this most recent cry for attention is working out the way that Snowdrift Snooki thought that it would?

Two political science majors have decided that the conventional wisdom which says that Sarah Palin damaged John McCain's 2008 chances is wrong. Oh and they think she has a shot at the presidency in 2016. I know, right?

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

It's been debated for five years, and the conventional wisdom has generally concluded that Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, hurt Sen. John McCain's chances to beat then-Sen. Barack Obama for the presidency with her outsized and controversial personality. 

But now a comprehensive new analysis of the so-called “Palin Effect” finds that in the final analysis, the former Alaska governor helped McCain by attracting more voters to the ticket, crushing a mainstream media view. 

What’s more, while she attracted wider press attention than most prior veep candidates, her actual impact for a No. 2 was about average. 

“Palin had a positive effect on McCain,” according to the new Palin analysis in the authoritative Political Research Quarterly. 

Digesting mountains of data, two political science professors from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., said their findings showed that the conventional wisdom that independent voters ran from the McCain-Palin ticket was wrong. They found that independent voters had the same reaction to Palin as Republicans, who largely liked her. 

Both findings could provide a basis for a 2016 run for the presidency by the Tea Party favorite. 

“Palin did not have a negative effect on McCain's voter share overall, nor did she result in eroded support for McCain among critical swing voters such as independents and moderates,” the duo wrote. 

Their analysis picked apart a recent report that Palin drove off voters and was uniquely divisive, claiming it was flawed.

Okay well let me first admit that I DO NOT have a degree in political science, however what I DO have is memory of what happened in 2008. After all I blogged about it daily. 

And what I remember was there was a HUGE amount of interest in Sarah Palin when she was announced as McCain's running mate, and that they kept her away from the press as long as they could before people started asking what was wrong with her. So they relented on September 11, 2008 and let her be interviewed by Charlie Gibson.

That is when everybody learned what was wrong with her.

That was then followed up by those Katie Couric interviews, during which Palin, blaming Nicolle Wallace for her problems with the Gibson interview, refused any help with preparation. That was essentially the beginning of the end for Palin's help in the John McCain campaign.

She was mocked by EVERYBODY, including being hoaxed by a Canadian comedy duo on radio, and becoming a staple for late night comedians, and even helping to turn Tina Fey into a household name.

By the end everybody on the McCain campaign, and virtually every political expert in the country, knew that Palin was an albatross around McCain's neck.

So I don't know what kind of data these two idiots were looking at, or how far up their ass they had to mine for it, but any political scientist who thinks that Palin was anything but a disaster, or has ANY future in politics, needs to choose a different profession immediately.

Because Spanky, this is NOT your thing!

P.S. I know this article is a few days old, but I literally just ran into it today.

Katie Couric engaged.

Courtesy of ABC News: 

Katie Couric is getting married to her financier boyfriend John Molner. 

Couric's spokesman Matthew Hiltzik confirmed the engagement Tuesday morning following a report by People magazine. 

Molner gave 56-year-old Couric, the former host of "Today," a diamond ring over the weekend in East Hampton. Molner, 50, is a partner at investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman, who oversees mergers and acquisitions advisory work for the firm's corporate clients. 

The couple have dated for nearly two years.

Okay clearly all of you wanted me to post this story since it has been sent to me in one form or another almost a dozens times now. 

And yes, Katie Couric deserves as much happiness in her life as possible since she did the country such a service in those interviews with Palin back in 2008.

Nate Silver on Hillary Clinton: "There's no kind of non-incumbent in history with those types of numbers."

Courtesy of The Atlantic: 

On the Democratic side, the big question is what does Hillary Clinton do. She is, New York Times polling analyst Nate Silver said last night at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in an extremely strong position as a primary candidate -- and that means she can get away with waiting to declare longer than some others. But if she waits too long to say she'll run, she won't be able to clear the field of competitors. And if she waits too long to say she won't run, she could potentially hurt the prospects of whoever the future Democratic nominee is, since less experienced and well-connected candidates will need more time to polish their performances on the stump and raise money and build a national campaign. 

"From the standpoint of the party primary, it's almost as though she's an incumbent president, right, where she even trumps, kind of, the VP, who very often wins nomination after a president is term-limited," said Silver, who was interviewed by Katie Couric in an evening session. "If you look at polls, you know, 60 to 70 percent of Democrats say they prefer Hillary to be the nominee. There's no kind of non-incumbent in history with those types of numbers."

Silver also added that Clinton could afford to wait until the last minute because she had no need to  waste advertising dollars in order to introduce herself to the voters. But he also said that if she did not at least privately signal her intentions to the rest of the possible Democratic candidates she would essentially frustrate them and potentially risk having one jump into the race before she made it plane that she intended to run.

I can only imagine how frustrating that would be to start the process, spend the money, and then have to find some believable reason to drop out after learning the Clinton juggernaut was about to launch.

Hillary could risk making some of her potential supporters angry if she waits too long.

Of course you know as frustrating as it might be for the Dems to wait, it would be infinitely more irritating for the Republicans to have decide if they want to put in a viable candidate or simply sacrifice someone's political future by having them run against Hillary.

"Game Change" walks away with three Golden Globe awards. Including one for Julianne Moore as "Best Actress in a TV movie."

"Game Change" won three of the five Golden Globes it was nominated for, including "Best TV Movie" and "Best Actress in a TV Movie."

In his acceptance speech, while contemplating Moore's performance, director Hal Roach sent a little zinger Sarah Palin's way:  

“Now with you and Tina Fey, we have three of the most incredible impersonations of Sarah Palin,” Roach said, “counting Sarah Palin.”

(You can see his acceptance of the best picture award here)

During HER acceptance speech, Julianne Moore could not resist giving a shout out to Katie Couric and Tina Fey for making a "significant difference in the 2008 elections."

(Oh you just know there was a fresh ding in that Wasilla refrigerator after THAT comment!)

Here is Julianne Moore's acceptance speech in its entirety.

Feel good Gif of the day.

I was actually looking for something uplifting to put up as the last post of the day.

I thought perhaps it might be nice to have a quote from a philosopher or scientist, with an inspiring photo of the universe or something. But then somebody sent me this.

I have watched it over two dozen times and it never fails to put a huge smile on my face. (I am pretty sure I posted the video version quite awhile back.)

And before I get any crazed trolls suggesting that I am anti-woman or wish harm to befall Sarah Palin, don't bother. This is obviously fake to anybody who sees it and only done in a humorous fashion, much like that famous tackle of Betty White in the Snickers commercial.

I do not ever condone violence toward women, EVEN Sarah Palin.

However having said that, I still find the gif somewhat cathartic.

Game Change won four Emmys last night! Including one for Julianne Moore's amazing portrayal of a certain half term Alaskan quitter. Update!

"I feel so validated because Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down."

BEST line of the night.

Game Change went on to win a total of four Emmys.

This according to the LA Times:

If Sarah Palin was watching the 64th annual Emmy Awards on ABC, she probably wasn’t clapping. HBO’s “Game Change,” about then-Alaska Gov. turned Republican vice presidential nominee, won for best miniseries or movie, director, writing and best actress for Julianne Moore, who played Palin. 

I have to say that was AMAZING considering the competition.

By the way doesn't Ms. Moore clean up well despite having to crawl inside the skin of that lunatic?

Update: Here is a little more about last night from USA Today:

Moore went on to thank the hair and makeup artists "who transformed me physically every day for two hours" and the dialect coach "who was so patient with me." 

Backstage, reports USA TODAY's Marco della Cava, Moore was asked whether she was anticipating any response from Palin for her Emmy win. 

"I really don't know," said Moore. "It's not about Sarah but about our political process. In an election year it's all about how we pick our leaders, which is what made it interesting to do this movie." 

She also said she regrets not mentioning two other people in her acceptance speech. 

"I wanted to give a shout out to Tina Fey and Katie Couric, they were really influential in the 2008 election, and I'm sorry I didn't say anything."

You know I think it's safe to say that Ms. Moore is NO Sarah Palin fan.  And considering what she learned about the Tundra Turd to play this role who can blame her?

Katie Couric knows how to handle crazy Right Wing ideologues. Just ask Ann Coulter.

The other day when I posted that Katie Couric had invited Sarah Palin to be interviewed on her new show, some of you worried that Couric would simply softball it, and let Palin off the hook.

To answer those charges I present this 2008 interview with the Crypt Keeper's daughter, Ann Coulter.

Now just for fun, imagine Sarah Palin sitting across from Couric while asked similar probing, and completely non-softball, questions.

Are you smiling? I know you are!

Okay since Sarah Palin insists on grabbing the spotlight whenever possible, perhaps she would like to allow this lady to shine a light on her again.

Courtesy of Inside TV:

Katie Couric’s infamous interview with Sarah Palin in 2008 may have left the ex-candidate smarting for some time, but that doesn’t mean the former network reporter doesn’t know a good newsmaker when she sees one: Couric told TV writers today in Los Angeles that she’s extended an invite to the ex-Alaskan governor to appear on her new talk show when it bows Sept. 10.

Oh please, please, please let this happen!

I have said it before, and I'll say it again, I would LOVE to see Couric interview the Grizzled Mama again! I seriously doubt if would have quite same impact as the last time, but it would a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  And boy do I know the perfect question for Katie to ask this lunatic! (In fact I've already e-mailed it to her.)

So what do you say Sarah, ready to show us that steel spine of yours?

Or are you just all talk?

Katie Couric throws down gauntlet and invites Sarah Palin for another interview. I suggest NOT holdiing our breath.

Courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel:  

When Katie Couric starts her daytime show in the fall, she would love to interview Sarah Palin. 

"She has an open invitation to come talk to me," Couric said during a stop Monday in Orlando. "I'm not sure she'd be interested, but she'd certainly be welcome. She's a fascinating figure not only on the political scene but in popular culture." 

Make no mistake, though: Couric stands behind her revealing Palin interview in 2008. Couric earned some of her best reviews, but Palin fans were furious. 

"I have no regrets about that interview," Couric said. "I don't need a do-over. I'm very proud I was doing my job, and when someone is running for the second highest office in the land, I think it's important to ask pointed, challenging questions, as I do for all candidates."

Well personally I think this is a GREAT idea!

This way Palin can prove once and for all that she is more intelligent than she appeared in that 2008 interview and  Couric gets the chance to show Palin what a REAL interview, where she is not simply thrown softballs, feels like.

Unless of course the Mama Grizzly is afraid?

But THAT can't be true.

Can it?

Of course I would not hold out too much hope of seeing this rematch:

Couric described "Katie" as a work in progress that will have test tapings in August. She stressed that the show will not pay for interviews.

Yeah, I don't think Palin does ANYTHING without a paycheck attacked to it anymore. Not that I'm calling her a whore or anything. That wouldn't be nice.

Accurate, but not nice.

Tina Fey gets it.

My two favorite heroines of the 2008 election, are Katie Couric and Tina Fey.

In my opinion they both did an incredible job of revealing Sarah Palin's stunning lack of ability, intelligence, and political acumen.

Fey did it through her dead on impressions of the Lunatic from Lake Lucille, and Couric did it with one simple question.

TV critic slamming Sarah Palin's co-hosting gig on Today Show: " Was another case of Today cheapening the journalistic brand of NBC News."

Courtesy of Mediaite:

 “It showed how frightened they [NBC] are by the move that GMA is making on them, number one. I also think the fact that GMA and ABC said, ‘Hey, we can throw Couric out here occasionally,’ scared them and rattled them. But more importantly, bringing Sarah Palin on that show, even if it got you a little ratings bump for the day she was on and it deflected some attention from Katie Couric, was another case of Today cheapening the journalistic brand of NBC News, which runs that show.”

Obviously I could not agree more. I am not always in agreement with David Zurawick, but this time he is spot on in his disgust over this ridiculous and potentially damaging stunt.

For those who are interested, here is David Zurawik's original article from April 3, the day after Palin wrung the last bit of journalistic integrity out of the Today Show.

Mad Magazine's take on Sarah Palin's attempt at "infiltrating some turf" on the Today Show.

Get a load of this description, from the magazine that had me giggling all through my adolescence:

When ABC announced that Katie Couric would be filling in as co-anchor on Good Morning America, the producers of The Today Show knew they had to do something big to counter-program. And they did! Unfortunately, they did something big and stupid, bringing in unqualified V.P. candidate, half-term Alaska governor and intellectual feather-weight Sarah Palin to co-host. Is this bad, desperate TV? You betcha!

I could not have said it better myself!

By the way, could the Today Show now be starting to feel the effects of the "Palin curse?" Maybe.

In what has become one of the most closely watched ratings battles ever, ABC’s Good Morning America with guest host Katie Couric edged Couric’s former show, NBC’s Today, for the first time. On Wednesday, Good Morning America drew 5.236 million total viewers, to Today’s 5.149 million. 

When will people ever learn?  Sure she may get you so some initial attention, but in the long run being associated with Sarah Palin is like going skinny dipping with an anchor around your neck.

The only place you are going is down.  And fast!

Katie Couric reflects on her now famous interviews with Sarah Palin.

What? You mean Palin wasn't set up?  Those weren't "gotcha questions?

Is Couric saying that she was just a journalist doing her job, and that the only reason the interview destroyed Palin's political credibility is because she was a an ignorant, dumbass?

Why yes, I think she is.

Sean Hannity asked Sarah Palin about doing another interview with Katie Couric Her response, "I swear to you I will not waste my time with her!".

Can you believe that Sarah Palin, the woman who avoids REAL journalists, like they are lepers, want to "clean up journalism?"

That would be like somebody who has completely out of control children offering parenting advice, like....well like Sarah Palin!

She is clearly off her meds by the way.  I watched more of the interview on Fox New (Because I had not suffered enough after sitting through an hour of DWTS, don'tcha know), and she was completely out of control and talking about Alaska being the country's "Fort Knox", and using her reality show to reach the Americans who do not watch Fox News, and how our freedoms in this country were given to us by God, and other equally bizarre rantings that made me wonder if she might be having a very difficulty time holding onto reality.

Lisa Murkowski gets interviewed by Katie Couric on CBS. Anybody else having a moment of Deja vu?

From Political Hotsheet:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowki told CBS News' Katie Couric today that she would not support Sarah Palin for president because Palin lacks the "leadership qualities" and "intellectual curiosity" to craft great policy.

"You know, she was my governor for two years, for just about two years there, and I don't think that she enjoyed governing," Murkowski said. "I don't think she liked to get down into the policy." The Alaska senator added that she prefers a candidate who "goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning thinking about how we're going to deal with" important issues.

In the interview with Couric, Murkowski said she did not have much of a relationship with Palin, though she said their interactions were "always professional."

"We just don't really have much in common - I mean, we don't talk to one another," she said.

"We have common interests in a shared love for our state, and I would like to think that if there were an opportunity to help do something good for Alaska, she would call me, or I could call her,"

Murkowski added. "But in fairness, she is not really that keyed into the state anymore. She is looking, obviously, at a bigger pond, and so we don't see her up north as much."

Here are the three videos of the full interview.







Still not a big fan, but considering how horribly wrong Joe Miller would have been for Alaska I guess I will just have to be happy with the way things worked out.

BTW if indeed Senator Murkowski would like to "be there for ALL" Alaskans then perhaps a good first step would be to vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  I know some of some rarely represented constituents who would be lifelong Murkowski supporters if she did.

Sarah Palin admits she quit as Governor because of the media.

From the Daily Caller:

From a remote location on an island off Alaska’s coast, former Governor Sarah Palin is blasting what she describes as the “sick puppies” in the media who immediately and ruthlessly attacked her when Sen. John McCain picked her as his running mate during the 2008 presidential campaign.

By "attacked her" she really means "investigated her", which to Palin must have seemed like an attack since, up until then, the Alaska media had rolled over to have its tummy rubbed every time she walked into the room and rarely asked her any difficult questions, or in Palin parlance, "gotcha questions."

In exclusive remarks to The Daily Caller, Palin described “hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’” descending upon Alaska in the days after she was picked by McCain.
She said the media became a key reason she decided not to finish out her term as governor and faults, in part, the McCain campaign for failing to vigorously defend her.

I have heard that "hordes of Obama opposition researchers" claim since the day Palin was picked as Old Man McCain's arm candy, but in fact most of the reporters who came up here were simply trying to learn more about this newly minted national politician who hardly anybody knew anything about.

Hell I was doing research as well, and I can assure you that NOBODY paid me a dime to do so.

Palin chose to be a public figure at the highest level, as a candidate in a presidential campaign, arguably inviting the most intense scrutiny imaginable.

“It was too obvious to me, my family, my administration and anyone else who knew me (and my record) that we were in a defenseless position the minute I gave my acceptance speech and the hordes of Obama’s opposition researchers-slash ‘reporters’ had descended upon Alaska,” Palin told The DC.
Palin, whose conflicts with key McCain campaign staffers are infamous, said the campaign could have stood by her more firmly.

“To not have had the McCain campaign staff defend my record was an insurmountable challenge, because once a bell is rung, it’s impossible to un-ring,” Palin said.

I believe what Sarah is referring to here is the McCain campaign's refusal to lie about Todd Palin's membership with the Alaska Independence Party.

“It didn’t help, either, that the hours and hours of interviews with the likes of Katie Couric resulted in a few minutes here and there of selected snippets of my annoyed answers. (I naively had not believed at the time of some of the badgering questions [for example, questioning my pro-life position] that the editing process would fulfill their biased purpose),” Palin said.

Another ridiculous accusation.  Palin also recently looked like an idiot while being interviewed by Bill O'Reilly, was THAT also edited?  The truth is that the woman always looks like an imbecile unless somebody asks her only soft ball questions or scripts them with her ahead of time.  And often that does not help either.

“I said, ‘Enough. Political adversaries and their political friends in the media will not destroy my State, my administration, nor my family. Enough.’ I knew if I didn’t play their game any longer, they could not win. I would not retreat, I would instead reload, and I would fight for what is right from a different plane.”

So there you have it from "Mama Grizzly" herself.  Palin quit the job she was elected to, because she simply could not stand up to the media and the bloggers.

There you go Republicans, THAT is the woman who energizes your base like no other, the woman who is the darling of the Teabaggers who are actively hijacking your party.

Good luck with that.

By the way, just so we are all on the same page, NOBODY fears the media unless they have something to hide.  Remember that.