Going berserk over 'Going Rogue;' Democrats' reaction to Sarah Palin book and publicity

Wow, for somebody who's supposed to be such a political joke, an Arctic ditz and eminently dismissable as a serious anything except maybe a stay-at-home hockey mom, Sarah Palin is sure drawing an awful lot of attention from Democrats and eager critics.

The launch of her "Going Rogue" interviews Monday on "Oprah," of her book today, of her on-air chat today with Rush Limbaugh at 10 a.m. Pacific and of her mid-America bus book tour Wednesday ignited a surprisingly large blizzard of derogatory Democrat dis-missives.

Every few minutes another note from Democratic National Committee operatives and others dropped into electronic mailboxes across the media-verse, helpfully passing on even the tiniest tidbit of negative news about Palin.

You know how sometimes a friend tells you how much he/she doesn't really care about....

So much Obama damage control that David Axelrod even talks to Fox News

Here's how desperate Obama administration spokesmen were Wednesday to fill the info void they'd created by hiding away during the previous night's bad news election returns:

David Axelrod, an ex-newspaper reporter but one of the lead Obama attackers against the Fox News Channel in recent weeks, actually granted an interview to the Fox News Channel. To Major Garrett.

Obama aides knew full well in advance that election night was not going to go well for them and the commentators would connect the dots back to Obama and VP Joe Biden because, well, that pair has been so actively campaigning and money-raising all over.  

So no administration spokesmen appeared during the evening news storm. They passed word ...

You betcha! The Sarah Palin speech(es) we never heard one year ago tonight

This is Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin one year ago right now during the concession speech of her Republican running mate, Sen. John McCain, outside the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.

Turns out Palin would have liked to give a little speech too, thanking some folks, graciously wishing the best to the Barack Obama winning ticket of Democrats and introducing with effusive praise the man who plucked her from the political obscurity of Anchorage and thrust her, unprepared but eager, onto the national stage.

Turns out now, we may be hearing more about her in coming years than the military hero who picked her.

Anyway, in their new book, "Sarah from Alaska," two journalists - Shushannah Walshe and Scott Conroy --  publish among other interesting information the two speeches the first female on a Republican national ticket was prepared to give, one a victory speech and one a concession. The Beast has published a story about the book over here.

The Ticket has independently confirmed that the speeches from the book are, indeed, the....

Fox News is evil -- unless you're selling an Obama book

Ah, the flexibility of politics. You gotta love it.

The Obama administration has in recent weeks picked a silly fight with the Fox News Channel to help keep impatient supporters on its own left from rebelling too much. If you've got a common enemy, you've got to stay together, right? Even if you're unhappy with the progressive progress on numerous Democratic fronts.

It's a silly fight for several reasons. It makes a president who must face down other nuclear powers look timorous and thin-skinned about something as inconsequential as the most popular U.S. cable news channel.

It ignores the fact that more than a third of Fox News viewers are Democrats. So the David Axelrod-Anita Dunn communications strategists are willfully forfeiting an opportunity to get their message out to millions more likely supporters.

And, worst, to pick and prolong a partisan fight with lowly D.C. journalists goes directly against the fundamental message that Barack Obama made a keynote of his $750-million holy campaign last year: changing the partisan tone in Washington once and for all. Change to believe in. No podemos si.

As a result, you haven't seen Obama administration officials interviewed much over there on Fox News, despite the invitations.

Come Thursday night, that won't change. That's because David Plouffe is not an official member of the Obama administration. He is, however, the single individual arguably most responsible for getting Obama into the White House.

Why will the Obama campaign manager appear, you might ask?

Because he wants to sell his book ("The Audacity to Win"), would be the answer. Which is apparently different than selling a political message. So Plouffe, who still loyally touts the official Obama line (he was nattering at Fox News again over the weekend on other outlets), has apparently received a presidential dispensation to appear on the evil empire.

Our diligent colleague Mark Silva, who broke this story, has much more detail here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: David Plouffe. Credit: Associated Press

Sunday shows: Jarrett, Axelrod, Limbaugh, Boehner

ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos: White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and a roundtable with former Bush White House aide Ed Gillespie, ex-Clinton Press Secretary DeeDee Myers, ABC's George Will and Rev. Al Sharpton.

Bloomberg Political Capital with Al Hunt: Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).

CBS Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Obama advisor David Axelrod and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Pakistan ex-President Pervez Musharraf, Matthew Hoh, Martin Wolf and Yale's Robert Shiller.

CNN State of the Union with John King: Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) and James Carville and Mary Matalin.

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Rush Limbaugh and Carl Cameron and Major Garrett on the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races with a roundtable of Brit Hume of Fox, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and NPR's Mara Liaisson and Juan Williams.

NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory: Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Jon Krakauer and NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell.

Also, for The Ticket's latest coverage of these shows' recent ratings moves, click here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Musharraf).

A first! President Obama actually golfs with a woman!

Another crack in the gender glass ceiling. And just nine months into his first term.

Despite the H1N1 swine flu national emergency he declared Saturday, President Barack Obama went golfing Sunday. And for the first time in the White House, he took a female along on his golf outing. She's Melody Barnes, his chief domestic policy adviser.

Because of Obama's sensitivity to privacy and his athletic skills off the basketball floor (think bumbling bowling in Pennsylvania), there will be no video or photos of the coed sports outing on the course at Washington's Fort Belvoir this afternoon.

But the tireless Lynn Sweet, today's print pool reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times who knows the competitive president well from his Illinois days, confirmed the golfing firstness.

At first she was told by a White House aide that Barnes was not the first female to swing a golf club with the rookie president.

When Sweet asked for the names of the others, the aide corrected himself and confirmed Barnes was the first, though he said Obama had golfed with unidentified women during the campaign.

The sensitivity in the Democrat White House arises from growing grumbling about recent evening basketball contests there with congressmen that were literally with congressmen. No females allowed. And then there was the all-male beer summit.

Golfing like this has historically been a guy thing. In business too. The import of the absence of women is not so much the guys' worry that they'll get thumped by a woman in front of others (although come to think of it.....)

It's the bonding that goes on through the shared competition and stories, some of them suitable for mixed company. And the lead in familiarity that shared social experience gives guys when promotion times come around.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Barnes with Obama). Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images (Barnes enroute to the golf course).

The White House words of Robert Gibbs: U.S. troops to Afghanistan

Virtually every day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs meets with the media -- fewer of whom actually have printing presses these days -- to answer assorted serious, superficial and silly questions about the president and his administration's doings or not-doings.

These sessions are broadcast on television and radio during the day, which makes access to them problematic for Ticket readers who actually have employment still and for our many followers overseas.

As a new regular feature on The Ticket, we'll be publishing unedited excerpts from these sessions to provide at least a brief feel for the ongoing issues, discussions and relationship between the media and the White House's official talking face. As you'll notice over time, sometimes the spokesman's answers -- much of them prefabricated during daily prep -- are not really designed to clarify.

With the president holding another of his three-hour strategy meetings today on what to do with the Afghanistan mess, many questions focused on that historically turbulent land and the evolving new policies to be announced, likely before Obama's long Asian trip next month.

More troops? More troops but fewer troops than expected? How to best politically package the new and improved Afghan strategy from the less-new Afghan strategy announced last March before American casualties began to soar and poll numbers begin to dip?

Today's excerpts come in two parts, separated by a line like this ..........................

-- Andrew Malcolm

The Ticket gives its own briefings several times a day. Don't miss any. Get Twitter alerts of each by clicking here. Or follow us @latimestot  And we're also on Facebook right here.

Excerpts from the White House briefing session with Robert Gibbs

Q. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said today that his government is ready to send 500 more troops under certain conditions.  And the BBC is reporting that the U.S. government told....

What if Obama really wants a fight over gay pajamas?

A little something to think about:

Have you too noticed that very few accidents seem to happen around Barack Obama?

Sure, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright association blew up in his face; that was just a matter of time and came not from Republicans but from fellow Democrats. One day the Harvard-educated, freshman senator from Illinois thought there were 57 states. He didn't know Canada had a prime minister, not a president. And it took some doing for the man to grudgingly give in to that stupid lapel flag pin thing.

The Geithner-Daschle-Solis back-tax deals were also messy.

But those gaffes happened early in the presidential campaign or the administration. He and his team have been touching every conceivable base at every opportunity, from tonight's Latin music fiesta at the White House to marking Leif Erikson Day to earn the Viking vote.

In fact, Obama's devoted so much time cultivating and nurturing these political niches that critics credibly suggest he might profitably invest less effort in the perpetual campaign mode -- flying off to Copenhagen to take an embarrassingly blunt public hit for the Chicago machine and chatting up that serial philanderer on the CBS late show -- and put in a lot more shirt-sleeve time in the Oval Office being the new president at the old desk.

On Saturday night before he was asked about "don't ask-don't tell" Obama told the banqueting but impatient Human Rights Campaign crowd (full text right here) all the Democratically correct things it wanted to hear before the big march for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) equality the next day.

So it was very surprising -- even jarring -- when on Sunday CNBC's John Harwood, long a respected political journalist, reported a conversation with an anonymous White....

Guest list for Obama's White House Ramadan dinner

(UPDATE: 5:48 p.m. The president's dinner remarks -- sans teleprompter -- have been added to the end of this item.)

The other day President Obama issued a special message to the Muslim world for the annual Ramadan holiday. Tonight, before leaving Wednesday for the rest of his stay-cation at Camp David, the president hosts a White House banquet to celebrate the same holiday.

Invited guests include three Cabinet secretaries, numerous diplomats, five members of Congress including the first Muslim, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and the chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission.

Here is the list of invited guests, as provided by the White House:

Cabinet: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Deputy Cabinet secretaries: Commerce Deputy Secretary Dennis Hightower and Education Deputy Secretary Adam Miller.

Congress: Reps. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.).

Diplomats: Ambassador Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan; Ambassador Adel A.M. Al Jubeir of Saudi Arabia; Ambassador Husain Haqqani of Pakistan; Ambassador Erlan A. Idrissov of Kazakhstan; Ambassador His Excellency Said ...

Sen. Al Franken's first legislative move is going to the dogs

After announcing his support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's Senate confirmation, newly minted Minnesota Democrat Al Franken has moved on to his next legislative issue: dogs.

Specifically, service dogs.

Franken (not pictured above) thinks the government should be more active in facilitating the connection of service dogs with wounded military veterans. Franken's been very impressed with some canines he's already seen on vet duty.

Franken wants to establish a three-year federal pilot program to study ways the animals can help the humans and measure those benefits. The estimated cost of the freshman Democrat's pilot dog program: $15 billion.

Just kidding.

It's only $7.4 billion.

No, not really. Our blogging buddy Tony Pierce has the real scoop over here at L.A. Unleashed.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture