Palin

After three years of tweeting, hinting and eyelash-batting, on Wednesday Sarah Palin announced that she was not running for president. Her Facebook friends are disappointed. But for Sarah-watchers in Alaska like me, the announcement was long expected, old news. In 2008, John McCain dumbfounded the nation when he selected Palin as his running mate. She was so obviously unqualified that even Dick Cheney said McCain had made a "reckless" choice; a judgment Palin quickly validated when she famously told Charles Gibson that she was qualified to speak authoritatively about foreign policy because the Eskimos who live on Little Diomede Island in the Alaskan Arctic can see Russia out their front windows.

There's consternation in Palin Nation. The former Alaska governor surprised many supporters this week when she endorsed Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a political fixture who would seem to represent everything that Palinistas loathe, which can be conveyed in a simple phrase: “the entrenched Washington elite.” Though she has taken herself out of contention for office, Palin continues to keep herself in the political game as a kind of would-be kingmaker,...

It's week three of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour, and while she has been met with rapture from her fans, she has received a wave of hostility from the mainstream media. David Letterman devoted four minutes of his monologue on publication day to mocking her. New York Times columnist David Brooks called her a joke, and Newsweek referenced "The Sound of Music," asking on its cover "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" Even domestic diva Martha Stewart weighed in, calling her "boring" and "dangerous."

An unflattering statue of Sarah Palin that doubles as a functioning stove -- yes, the cooking kind -- has found a home in Chicago. The work of public art, created by a Chicago artist named J. Taylor Wallace, will take up residence at the Bridgeport Art Center. "We're havin' a Tea Pear-ody" is a large-scale metallic rendering of Palin's head, with signature glasses, tight bun and mouth wide open as if shouting. Smoke from the stove emerges from the top of the head, according to reports.

Show photo as warning to others seeking America's destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama;it's part of the mission

As Sarah Palin and Rick Perry wrestle with whether to join the 2012 GOP presidential field, Michele Bachmann is surging, a new poll said Wednesday. Palin and Perry’s Hamlet turn has created an opening for Bachmann, who, according to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, now stands second to Mitt Romney among registered voters nationally. The Minnesota congresswoman stood at 14% to Romney’s 25, a leap of eight points from a similar poll conducted a month ago. Romney’s support has stayed flat.

Is Sarah Palin flirting with the presidential race again? Might Jeb Bush be the GOP's white knight? And shouldn't Democrats give Hillary Rodham Clinton another chance? 'Tis the season. The silly season, that is, at least as far as the race for the White House goes. With just two weeks before we finally see votes cast in the 2012 race, it seems some just refuse to accept that the field of candidates is settled. Among them, apparently, is Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee.

Re "Palin ethics lapse cited," Oct. 11 If Sarah Palin truly were the ethical leader she claims to be, she would have told John McCain: "Thanks, but no thanks, for offering me the bridge to political oblivion. I am not qualified to be your running mate, and I have an ethical investigation hanging over me that could become a liability for your campaign." As far as McCain is concerned, I wonder if he had those seven houses inspected before he purchased them? Drew N. Kelner Newbury Park -- Palin has a lot of nerve trying to influence the firing of public employees.

Re "Palin's exit as governor stuns, puzzles," July 4 If Sarah Palin desires to run for president in 2012, it seems strange that she would think that the best way she can serve her current Alaskan constituency is by not serving them at all. Jonathan Horowitz Irvine -- It surprised me to read in your article that her remarks were "disjointed and cryptic," because I heard her speech, and they were sincere, profound and eloquent....

Re "From Punch Line to Battle Lines," by Scott Collins, June 16: If Don Imus was forced off the air for insulting a women's basketball team, "Dung-Mouth" David Letterman should certainly be fired for calling a woman governor a slut and setting up her 14-year-old daughter for lifetime ridicule as being "knocked up" during a ballgame. Aaron L. Kolom West Hollywood -- The most egregious thing Letterman did was tell a bad joke -- even though the fact that it was based on the reality that one of Gov. Palin's underage daughters had been "knocked up" seems to go unnoticed.

When Sarah Palin turned up as a guest host on NBC's "Today" this week - grinning amid a pile of newspapers, raiding the hair products in Matt Lauer's dressing room - the stunt drew outrage from some quarters. Jon Stewart even called it "a detriment" to the country. But if the NBC bosses are ashamed of themselves, they're not letting it show. "It was great morning television, honestly - in the best tradition of the 'Today' show," Jim Bell, executive producer of TV's No. 1 morning show, said of the former Alaska governor in a phone chat.

Joining what she has dubbed the “lame-stream media,” if only for a brief time, Sarah Palin ended up throwing as many jabs at herself as at President Obama during an appearance on the “Today” show Tuesday morning. Introduced amid a pile of newspapers, acting flustered, Palin immediately harkened back to her infamous interview with former “Today” host Katie Couric. “Oh man, she's doing her homework!” current host Matt Lauer joked as the former Alaskan governor then dove into an anecdote about being mistaken for Tina Fey, known for her pitch-perfect impersonations of Palin on “Saturday Night Live” during the 2008 election cycle.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hasn't ruled out running for president, but her next job will be a bit less challenging: doing a stint as a "special guest host" on NBC's"Today Show" on Tuesday. It's easy to understand NBC's motivations: not only is Palin a star in the political firmament, she has a unique ability to draw viewers to "Today" this week. That's because Katie Couric, former "Today" star and "CBS Evening News" anchor, is spending the week as guest host of a rival morning talk show,ABC's"Good Morning America.

Supporters of Sarah Palin who fear HBO's "Game Change" will present a negative portrayal of the former Alaska governor will have their own viewing options this weekend. Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, emailed supporters Friday to direct their attention away from HBO and instead to the Reelz Channel, which will have the cable television premiere of the pro-Palin documentary "The Undefeated" on Sunday night. "Please tune in to see the real Sarah Palin story," the email stated, without reference to HBO's depiction of Palin.

"The Undefeated," a documentary about former Alaskan governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin drawn from her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," seems to have been made as a piece of political promotion for the 2012 presidential race. But before "The Undefeated" premiered in a tiny number of theaters, Palin announced that she would not run. The film did not do well, either financially or critically. Now it has found a secondary purpose — running on Reelz Channel as an answer to the much-touted HBO film "Game Change.

There is a truly heartbreaking moment in "Game Change," the HBO film about Sarah Palin's run for vice president. It comes after Palin (Julianne Moore) has made her galvanizing speech at the Republican National Convention accepting the nomination as John McCain's (Ed Harris) running mate and is drawing jaw-dropping crowds to her meet and greets. Footage is shown of the people waiting hours to meet her, including one rather large and nondescript woman who looks straight at the camera and says: "I have five kids.

When Sarah Palin abruptly stepped down as Alaska governor in July before the end of her first term, many questioned how she could maintain a national presence without the platform of elected office. That hasn't proven a problem for the onetime Republican vice presidential nominee, who has kept herself at the center of political debate with a bestselling book, an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and controversial Facebook postings. Now Palin has found another way to stay in the spotlight: by signing on as a contributor for the top-rated Fox News Channel.

When Sarah Palin turned up as a guest host on NBC's "Today" this week - grinning amid a pile of newspapers, raiding the hair products in Matt Lauer's dressing room - the stunt drew outrage from some quarters. Jon Stewart even called it "a detriment" to the country. But if the NBC bosses are ashamed of themselves, they're not letting it show. "It was great morning television, honestly - in the best tradition of the 'Today' show," Jim Bell, executive producer of TV's No. 1 morning show, said of the former Alaska governor in a phone chat.

Sarah Palin cast a vote tonight for one of the Republican presidential candidates. But for whom? A CNN producer caught the former vice presidential nominee after she voted in a presidential preference poll at the Alaska district convention in her home town of Wasilla. Video is below. While she would not say which candidate was getting her vote, she again said she wants the nominating process to continue -- and would not rule out being an option for Republicans in the case of a brokered convention.