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Aaron Sorkin: Not hitting ‘like’ on Sarah Palin

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The Week 2 campaign to get more of Middle America interested in ‘The Social Network’ is off to a flying start.

Aaron Sorkin, never reticent on matters of politics, wandered into an ideological thicket on CNN’s new ‘Parker Spitzer’ show Monday. According to several accounts of the telecast, the show, on which guests had been discussing Sarah Palin, had the left-leaning Sorkin dissing the former VP candidate in words that make his Mark Zuckerberg depiction look like hagiography.

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According to several accounts, the ‘West Wing’ creator told hosts that ‘Sarah Palin is an idiot. A remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent, mean woman.’ Sorkin also reportedly said that ‘the Democrats have moved to the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution. So I’ll take the Democrats.’

‘The Social Network’ was always sold on story and performance, not message. Still, if you want to persuade a certain segment of a certain working-class audience that this movie about rich Harvard kids is for them, having its writer dis a grassroots favorite might not be the way to do it. Good thing Sony has strong publicists. No embed code, but you can watch Sorkin’s Spitzer video here.

[Update, 11:24 p.m. We caught up with the full segment, and Sorkin doesn’t mince words. What he does do is acknowledge that his opinions may not serve the movie’s publicity aims. He kicked off his comments with a disclaimer. ‘’The Social Network’ has absolutely no politics at all. No one has to agree with anything that I’m saying in order to see this movie,’ he said, before continuing immediately with ‘But Sarah Palin is an idiot. Come on.’

Then he acknowledged jokingly -- or was it? -- that he may be shooting his movie in the foot. ‘The senior people at Sony are just killing me for what I’m saying,’ he said as he wrapped up his interview. ‘I actually went on TV and lost ticket-buyers.’]

--Steven Zeitchik

twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

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