Sarah Palin, the GOP’s embattled former vice presidential candidate, will not run again for governor of Alaska, prompting speculation that she is considering a presidential race in 2012.
Palin made the announcement at her hometown of Wasilla.
[Update: At a news conference before the Fourth of July weekend, Palin said she would step aside as governor and be replaced by Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, according to local television reports. Palin took no questions.]
The battle between media heavyweights Gov. Sarah Palin and comedian David Letterman is going into overtime, beyond the usually allotted 15 minutes of fame.
Appearing this morning on NBC’s “Today” show, the Alaska governor and favorite of the conservative wing of the GOP again demanded that Letterman apologize to women for a joke the television host made about one of her daughters getting "knocked up." Those wanting a quick look back, should check out our original post.
Letterman has said that the joke about a Palin daughter getting pregnant by a Yankee baseball player was in poor taste (probably not the first such bad joke Letterman has told and arguably not the most distasteful).
Still, Palin contends that the target was her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who was the only daughter with her at Yankee Stadium last weekend. That makes the questionable quip a comment about statutory rape. It’s “a degrading comment about a young woman,” Palin said this morning. “And I would hope that people would start really rising up and not accepting this.”
“It’s no wonder girls have such low self-esteem in America when a comedian can make a remark like this,” the former vice presidential candidate said.
Now, in normal circumstances, a slugfest between a talk show host, who is facing his own problems from a new competitor at NBC’s "The Tonight Show," and a former candidate for vice president (this society doesn’t even care about vice presidents when they are in office) would be about as interesting as a healthcare policy debate between athletes on steroids.
But hang in, there are real concerns here.
Palin is a potential presidential candidate who can’t afford to be fighting with anyone in her party, which polls show is about as popular as ants at a July Fourth picnic. Even worse, none can say who actually speaks for Republicans, fractured into more pieces than taffy dropped from the roof of a building.
The Alaska governor and her allies argued during the campaign that the media were an enemy, so who better to attack than a media icon like Letterman, with a hip (read: liberal) audience.
The big complaint by Palin and others was that the media never took her seriously, in part because she was a woman, and set verbal traps for her. In truth, there were numerous comparisons of her to Tina Fey and much of the reporting dealt with her gaffes in interviews or her use of the winsome wink during her debate with then-Sen., now Vice President Joe Biden.
So fighting a man over a demeaning comment about women makes political sense as well as giving Palin a well-publicized shot at being a mother protecting her young; she famously said during her Republican convention speech that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull was lipstick. This is a win-win for all of her constituencies.
And, to be honest, NBC doesn't mind stoking an embarrassing controversy involving its CBS competition.
Too much, you say, about a joke that at most went bad like three-day mayonnaise?
Perhaps. But television is today’s arena of public debate in society – and it is not just the Sunday morning talk shows. It is every show, every network, every celebrity, every politician. Why else would President Obama, no slouch at the ratings game himself, do Jay Leno’s show or joke about Conan O’Brien?
Not even today’s switch to digital, which could throw about 2 million people out of the free television arena, will change the truth that television portrayal is as important to politics as it is to advertising – and some would say that is the same thing.
Maybe it's just the tempting ratings window of no longer going up against NBC's Juggernaut Jay and being the also-ran of late-night television.
But CBS' David Letterman told a real howler on nationwide TV Monday night that drew gasps from some parents and now a scathing rebuttal from the nation's most famous pitbull hockey mom -- and dad.
Noting that Alaska's Republican Gov.Sarah Palin and her daughter attended a New York Yankees game over the weekend with famous Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani, Letterman said:
One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.
Letterman, until recently an unwed father, has often made his disdain clear for the former GOP VP nominee, who had several damaging interviews with CBS during the general election campaign last September.
But this is the first time in memory he's taken on the teenage daughter of the governor, on the left in the above photo.
In a statement to Fox News, Palin called the comments "inappropriate" and "sexually perverted" and ones Letterman would not "dare make" about anyone else's daughter.
The governor added:
"Acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others."
Willow's father, Todd, added his thoughts:
Any ‘jokes’ about raping my 14-year-old are despicable. Alaskans know it, and I believe the rest of the world knows it, too.
So far, the "Late Show" has declined comment -- or even another joke. (UPDATE: 5:06 p.m.Pacific Taping tonight's program in New York, Letterman made for him a lengthy explanation or clarification, though no apology. He said that his "joke" Monday about Palin's (unnamed) daughter getting "knocked up" by a professional baseball player was aimed at Palin's daughter, Bristol, who is 18, not Willow, who is 14 and attended the baseball game. "I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex with a 14-year-old girl...Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes."
(He then invited Palin on his program. Which might really help Letterman's ratings, at least that night, against his new late-night competition, Conan O'Brien. Oh, come to think of it: That's where Palin should really go for a celebrated chat -- over to NBC. Not that ratings revenge would ever cross the mind of the governor, a former TV reporter.) (2d UPDATE: 7:05 p.m. Pacific "The Late Show" just e-mailed The Ticket a longer set of excerpts from tonight's program, which we are publishing below in their entirety.)
Photo credit: Office of the Alaska Governor; CBS (2008)
Excerpts from "The Late Show with David Letterman" June 10, 2009:
“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is – her name is Bristol, that’s right, and so, then, now they’re upset with me…”
“These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don’t think it’s funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn’t put it in a joke…”
“…Governor Palin, if you’re watching, I would like you to consider coming to New York City – you and Todd as my guests, or leave Todd at home – I’d love to have you on the show. It’d be exciting…”
“All right, so there, I hope I’ve cleared part of this up. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was okay for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No.”
In the early weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama felt hemmed in by the Washington bubble.
Tom Daschle, his nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services, was hitting some unexpected bumps in Congress as senators raised questions about a certain $120,000 bill in unpaid taxes. Eventually the former Senate majority leader took himself out of the running.
Republicans were voting in lock step against the president's economic stimulus package. Eventually, the $787-billion bill passed with only three Republican votes, including one from Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who's now a Democrat.
So Obama told his aides that he wanted to get out of Washington every so often, to do an occasional town hall, field a question from a critic, have an impromptu meal at a local dive, feel the love.
Today he returned from a two-day trip to Nevada and California, where he raised more than $6 million for the Democratic National Committee, mingled with the stars and celebrities in Hollywood, even made his peace with officials in Nevada still smarting over the president's admonition to companies like AIG getting government bailout money not to take junkets in Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime.
Well, once again Larry King's bookers have got the big get -- Levi Johnston is scheduled to be on the CNN show tonight, unless his pickup breaks down in Saskatchewan.
It's billed as an "exclusive" -- at least for this week.
Johnston's such a huge star that LK actually had to wait until after Johnston did the Tyra Banks Show.
But the nation is pretty gosh-darned excited to get maybe its ninth look at this high school dropout hockey player who is said to have impregnated Bristol Palin, the Alaska governor Sarah Palin's teenage daughter. What better reason to put someone on prime-time TV for millions to not watch?
There's nothing like the word "former" to help splinter families wide open, which is great TV entertainment. Watching other families squabble and pretending we don't.
So the former future son-in-law of the former future Republican vice president will undergo probing interrogation by the suspendered one, who's been getting married and remarried and remarried and doing this interviewing gig thing since even before Joe Biden became a senator.
Wardrobe note: On tonight's show everyone will probably be wearing a shirt, unlike on "Cops."
Because most of the nation's TiVos have already been set to record both of the Billy Mays specials tonight, as a public service the Ticket has collected virtually all of Levi Johnston's answers in ...
Stipulation: Meghan McCain is a refreshing political personality to watch who is her own self. And might be trying to prove it a little too hard.
These days she's doing some blogging over at the DailyBeast. But it seems somebody (apparently a fellow Beast part-timer) wrote somewhere that Ms. McCain has yet to accomplish much in her privileged life. Which prompted her to respond. And respond. And respond.
And respond.
Using her Twitter account, which limits users to 140-character messages, McCain produced a lengthy series of angry Tweets -- some using the #$%&!* word.
They detailed her numerous life activities starting with volunteer tutoring at 16 and helping receive flowers at a hospital desk and internships and moving up through writing a children's book and founding "my multi-award-winning website mccainblogette.com, which is officially the first blog in history to document a presidential campaign." (Her father's, of course.)
But, as Gawker.com leapt to point out, that claim isn't quite exactly precisely true, since the Kerry-Edwards campaign had one five years ago, likely among others.
Last summer, about-to-be Republican presidential nominee John McCain had a long list of 26 possible vice presidential running mates. None of them knew he or she was being considered.
Ronald Reagan's former counsel A.B. Culvahouse was in charge of the candidate partner vetting process and helped the Arizona senator pare down the list. But McCain, Culvahouse revealed Friday, was intrigued by Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old Alaska governor and mother of five.
That was understandable, the former presidential aide said. Even the most cynical of his 30 Washington, D.C., attorney vetters were impressed by her presence. "She fills up a room," Culvahouse told a Washington meeting of the Republican National Lawyers Assn. (See video below.) Even difficult questions, he said, she knocked "out of the park" during the vice president interview process.
The lawyer said standard Washington procedure would have been to choose a running mate with the best political resume. But, he said, he had an arrangement with McCain: that he'd have direct communications with the senator and that McCain would not select any partner unvetted by Culvahouse.
His orders from McCain were to find "someone who had the capacity to be president," Culvahouse said. His team produced 50-page reports on each candidate, drawing from their own investigations and the potential candidate's detailed answers to 74 questions, including "Have you ever been unfaithful?"
Near decision time, Culvahouse said, McCain asked him for the "bottom line" on Palin.
"John," Culvahouse replied, "high risk, high reward."
To which McCain, the former Vietnam attack pilot who flew off and landed on aircraft carriers before spending more than six years as a POW, replied, "You shouldn't have told me that. I've been a risk-taker all my life."
Culvahouse said the McCain campaign knew everything about Palin going in, including the pregnancy of her unmarried teenage daughter, Bristol.
Culvahouse said Palin would have been "a great vice president," while admitting she wouldn't have been ready by Jan. 20. But, he added, hardly anyone would be ready, except perhaps the very experienced Dick Cheney.
The full Culvahouse remarks are on the video below, and our blogging colleague Mark Silva has more details over at the Swamp.
I find it ironic that many human rights advocates and outspoken members of my own entertainment community are often on the front lines to protest repression ... but they are usually the first ones to oppose any use of force to take care of these horrors that they catalogue repeatedly.
Under the unwavering leadership of President Bush, the cause of freedom and democracy is being advanced by the courageous men and women serving in our armed services. The president is doing exactly the right thing.
In Hollywood, of course, it's slightly dangerous to veer off the approved ideological path, but Silver's liberal bona fides were unassailable, and he was able to cross party lines without much repercussion.
Here, in an interview with David Frost last October, Silver, who looks slightly ill, talks about his politics, which he describes as solidly liberal.
"I have said things that have angered both parties.... I am socially and economically still a Democrat and always was. If gay people want to get married, God bless them. I try to warn them that along with marriage comes divorce, but they don't listen to me, so good luck. On things like healthcare, I am to the left of most people...."
You may want to check out arts writer Barbara Isenberg's fascinating 1992 Q&A with Silver, posted on the L.A. Times blog the Daily Mirror, here.
Newly released academic research suggests that Sarah Palin's sexiness, while great for selling copies of Vogue magazine and political buttons about the hottest governor from the coldest state last fall, may actually have hurt her vote-getting ability, which seems to be what elections are about.
Of course, standing next to John McCain is bound to make pretty much anyone look pretty much prettier. Which may be one reason the crowds often chanted "Sar-RAH! Sa-RAH!" when the Republican governor and Republican senator appeared together as the GOP presidential ticket.
According to an article by Tom Jacobs on the website of Santa Barbara's Miller-McCune Center, recently completed research at the University of South Florida indicates that, at least among a select group of students there, those who found the hockey mom more attractive also judged her less competent, less intelligent and less capable.
This didn't seem to have much impact in Palin's 2006 primary upset victory and statewide election as the largest state's first female governor.
But the finding, being published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, does conform with previous research that found attractive women in high-status jobs were perceived as less competent.
Both outcomes would seem to strongly indicate there's more to the glass ceiling for females than the actual glass. No news to them.
According to Nathan Heflick, a psychologist and one of the research authors, it wasn't Palin's appearance per se that turned off the research subjects.
"It was the effect her appearance had on their perception of her competence and humanity," Heflick said. "Those variables made people less likely to vote for her."
All of which would seem to suggest that, for any hope of success in 2012 or beyond, the 45-year-old governor needs to whack off that hair, pork up a bit and get some cheap, baggy pantsuits over at the Wasilla Wal-Mart. And instead of that come-on wink that many thought they liked, she'd do well to develop an uncontrollable facial twitch.
Also lose the kids, stop smiling, get angrier, so she can look more congressional. That's been working real well for Republicans the last two elections.
For olde time's sake, we've thrown in a video down below of Palin addressing a crowd that seems to like her the way she is.
Well, today is the Big 4-5 Sarah Louise Palin, the lipstick-wearing, pit-bull hockey mom whom some folks still can't get enough of -- and others long ago did. (But, look, you're still here reading!)
Alaska's youngest and first-ever female governor, she keeps popping up in the news for one thing or another. And we tend to follow her at the SarahPalin4President and at the SarahPalinBlog. Here, for those who are intrigued by her, is a birthday gift bag of recent Sarah Stuff. (For those who don't like her, you know you're gonna read it anyway):
At last report, Palin's husband, Todd, is running fifth, 61 minutes behind the leaders, in the Tesoro Iron Dog snowmobile -- er, snow-machine -- race, which he has won four times. It's one week long in weather that sometimes warms up to minus-40. So, he probably won't be bringing home fresh-cut flowers for SP tonight.UPDATE: Todd finished sixth in a little over 41 hours.)
The Alaska Senate recently found Todd and nine others in contempt for ignoring subpoenas in the now-dead Troopergate investigation, but there's no punishment involved. The state's attorney general, Talis Colberg, who advised Palin and others during the investigation, resigned Tuesday over the controversy.
Nevermind Palin's own reported upcoming book, Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions is about to publish "Trail Blazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin" by People's Lorenzo Benet.
Palin did travel to Washington for the recent Alfalfa Club dinner of alleged D.C. elites (taking an overnight charter to avoid missing a day from state work), where she talked up Alan Greenspan and others, apparently impressing some longtime Republicans like Fred Malek.
And she also took the occasion to talk up Alaska's new planned pipeline with fellow dinner guest Barack Obama.
But with a re-election campaign looming next year, Palin turned down a blizzard of media interview requests to play down her Alaska absence. She's also decided against traveling back to Washington for the upcoming CPAC meeting but will address the conservative faithful via a videotape, which they do have now up in Alaska ever since electricity came in the other day.
Follow @latimestot for political news and backgrounders sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.
Our Bloggers
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the Countdown to Crawford blog here at The Times.
All L.A. Times Blogs
All The RageAmerican Idol Tracker
Angels Unplugged
Babylon & Beyond
Big Picture
Booster Shots
California Consumer
Comments Blog
Company Town
Culture Monster
Daily Dish
Daily Mirror
Daily Travel & Deal Blog
Dish Rag
Dodger Thoughts
Fabulous Forum
Gold Derby
Greenspace
Hero Complex
Homicide Report
Jacket Copy
L.A. at Home
L.A. Land
L.A. Now
L.A. Unleashed
La Plaza
Lakers
Money & Co.
Movable Buffet
Opinion L.A.
Outposts
Pop & Hiss
Readers' Representative Journal
Show Tracker
Technology
Ticket to Vancouver
Top of the Ticket
Up to Speed
Varsity Times Insider
Political Blogs
Political News
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007