Blogs and Stories
The All-New Sarah Palin
She was approachable and full of pep. She spoke in coherent sentences. Yep, the former Alaska governor’s appearance on Oprah was a slam-dunk—despite a few flashes of the old Sarah Barracuda.
Xtra Insight: Watch the 7 Best Moments from Palin’s Oprah Interview
Never has Sarah Palin appeared so comfortable in her own skin on national television as she did Monday afternoon on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She spoke in clear, easily diagrammable sentences—none of those weird locutions about Putin rearing his head somewhere in the stratosphere over the Aleutian Islands. She was approachable and full of pep. And even with that percussive laugh—the raucous call of an exotic plumed bird during mating season, perhaps—she displayed an appealingly mordant sense of humor.
Sarah looked fly in her tailored blue-green jacket, her pleasing face with those sky-high cheekbones framed by those rimless glasses (no superfluous vanity here!) and a Rapunzel-like profusion of chestnut hair with expensively done blond highlights. Would you a buy a ghostwritten book from this woman? Absolutely, you would!
Oprah asked: “What happens when he comes to see the baby?” Sarah—metaphorical gobbets of Levi’s flesh in her jaws—answered: “He’s quite busy with his media tours and he hasn’t seen the baby for a while.”
When Oprah pressed Sarah on her flubbed what-do-you-read answer in that infamous campaign interview more than a year ago with Katie Couric, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate and abruptly retired Alaska governor gave her most persuasive and coherent explanation to date.
“By the time she asked me that question,” Sarah told Oprah, “I was already so annoyed, and it was very unprofessional of me to wear that annoyance on my sleeve…To me, it was more in the context of ‘Do you read?’ ‘How do you stay informed?’…It seemed like she was discovering some nomadic tribe—a member of a tribe from some Neanderthal cave up in Alaska.”
Sarah went on: “We had just come off the amazing rally, workin’ the rope line…these energized, awesome people! I’m pumped up—just over-the-top pumped up with energy and so happy! And we’re running backstage and my friend Betsy, she opens the curtain for me to get backstage—and there’s The Perky One again with the microphone and the cameras rolling.”
“The Perky One,” Oprah chimed in. “You mean Katie.”
“With all due respect,” Sarah agreed with a winning grin, getting a rare round of laughter from the studio audience.
“You’re pretty perky, too!” Oprah noted.
Yep. Perky as all get-out—and not in the measured, self-conscious manner of a politician looking toward some future campaign, but in the enjoyably distracting, natural way of a daytime talk-show host, charming viewers between commercials for feminine products and fast-food joints.
• Vanessa Friedman: What Palin’s Clothes Reveal
• Conor Friedersdorf: Palin’s Fatal 2012 Flaw There were moments when by all appearances it was just two daytime talk-show hosts sittin’ around talkin’. “Oprah, you are the queen of talk shows—there’s nothing for you to worry about,” Sarah joked when Oprah asked if she should be concerned about the competition. Fun, relaxed chick-chat, if you will—a warm feeling enhanced by B-roll, obtained by Oprah’s crack production team on a trek all the way to Wasilla, of Sarah making caramel apples with her family in the kitchen, working out in the local gym, handing off Trig to Todd, and trick-or-treating with Piper. Good times.
Except when, inevitably, Sarah Barracuda showed up, rearing her head—just like ol’ Putin!—and baring her bleached white teeth. Come to think of it, it was more Great White than Barracuda. The metaphorical shark attack came when Oprah turned the conversation to Sarah’s former future son-in-law, Levi Johnston, the estranged baby daddy with Sarah’s teenage daughter Bristol. And just when Sarah was beginning to be so likable. Dang!
Stars Celebrate the Super Bowl
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
The David Paterson Rumors
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Spitzer's Redemption Strategy
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Taming Haiti's Lawless Streets
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
piktor
This is a joke, no?
Granite
Okay plantag:
1 - 2 - 3 GO! Don't hold back---just spew your STUPIDITY!!!
spotted
Even Plant can't defend her.
johnmcenroe
I know I am repeating myself, but I can't help it: you cannot be serious.
piktor
If you're right, you're right, John. This is a silly post by Mr. Grove.
studentoflaw
i know this might be a stretch, but did anyone else find it odd that palin kept referring to tripp as this "most beautiful" baby boy? why not just beautiful?
it's an oddly comparative of phrasing it, especially against the backdrop of the allegations made by johnston's that palin openly favors her grandson tripp over her son trig.
pricklypear
yip yip yip yip yip yip yip
sandragloria
Now lets look at it, everything that Levi has said about palin is coming into light. He said that she wanted money, and that she was writing a book to make it, and boy are you people making her dream come true. I guess wearing those expensive clothes did something to her, not having to eat moose but real top of the line steak really added to her desire to be rich, and with her attitude she knew just how to get it. I wonder what would happen if no one bought the book.
bimmler
wtf? who are you and what does this column mean? did you just get high for the first time in a long while?
Monk66
she's a maniac MANIAC on the floor.
and she wont shut up cause she never has before
judgeinmillvalley
Watching this woman is so painful, almost as painful as oprah throwing her soft balls and letting every opportunity pass to ask a follow up question on anything of importance. Try listening to the Sarah babe instead of watching her. If she looked like, say, Hillary, and knew as much as she does, where would she be today? Can you spell Wasilla?
IslandX
She is something else, so I can understand how people will feel inferior just reading about her.
wolverine1987
Why wouldn't Oprah throw her "soft balls?" Did you think she had a responsibility to expose the Palin facade and rip into he politically? She's a talk show host doofus.
riall1
You know I was about to get angry at the absudity of this article....but then I saw who wrote it and I realized that the right wing pr campaign copywriter was being employed. Of course HE would take this view. I do hope they are paying you a lot to sell this tripe. I am just sad that the daily beast allows advertising space to be sold as editorial.
RubberPimple
Approachable. Full of "pep." Spoke in coherent sentences. This is the extent to which our standards for a LEADER have cratered.
Utterly. Pathetic.
Sajwert
RubberPimple, I agree with your comment. It frightens me no end that we have a president in office now that can speak with fluency and intelligence on many subjects, and yet is castigated soundly for almost every utterance that the right-wing conservatives don't like. However, they then turn around and hang on every word this woman utters as if she was channeling the word of god.
pricklypear
....said the obsessed one.
crypto
Not really, sajwert. While he possesses a degree from a highly recommended University, and has spent years of practice on the common people, speaking with fluency is not his strong point. In the instances where he did not have access to his script or the teleprompters malfunctioned he fumbled and bumbled around just like the rest of the politicians who don't have that equipment. This creats problems for him with people who are already looking for fault. Because none of his material appears to be sincere.
clearthinker
he can speak, yes, but he can't deliver a speech without a teleprompter and his policies absolutely suck. I hope that is "coherent" enough for you.
IslandX
Inferiority is such a darn thing to behold!!!
piktor
From NYTimes:
"...Ms. Palin has emerged as quintessentially American, in terms of the America of the moment. Her career gyrations, life and family continue to feed a spotlight-hungry media carnival. In some ways her almost son-in-law's quick and callous cashing-in looks like a junior version of her own quickie book campaign."
http://bit.ly/4Fmm3n
clearthinker
The New York Times is nearly out of business. THe reason could be because what you just copied makes ZERO sense. It's as if the NYT tried their best to slap her around on every conceivable topic all in one sentence.
Erock1
A "Slam Dunk"! on Oprah! Hey, no shit, what did you expect, the McCarthy hearings? I can't wait until she walks out on Larry King and really puts him in his place. As much as this woman supposedly hates the media, she has no problems trafficking in fluffy bullshit. By "media" she must mean legitimate journalists. If there is such a thing anymore; not well-represented in this column. While "full of pep" and "looking fly", this bit was as vacuous and redundant as its subject matter.
RegisteredIndependent
Most curious to me is that even after winning the election, the Obama supporters and most of the MSM pundits still froth at the mouth at the mention of this woman's name. What's up with that? Is she a threat? Is it because she's a woman? or is it because she gets enough attention to eclipse any "news" about the POTUS? Maybe all three...
opedanderson
There were 7 articles about SP today on TDB!
Why?
We are being told over and over again how stupid and irrelevant she is.......yet like high school kids, the MSM cannot stop talking about her.
Makes you wonder.......
spotted
For the same reason people watch car wrecks . . .
RegisteredIndependent
We've also been told that Hillary Clinton is 'unqualified' to be POTUS and also a racist (right before the SC primary), that the stimulus package is working, that the healthcare reform bill is brilliant and that KSM's trial in NYC is 'nothing to worry about'.
I've stopped wondering. It's pretty clear to me.
StellaRay
"Is she a threat? Is it because she's a woman? or is it because she gets enough attention to eclipse any "news" about the POTUS? Maybe all three..."
RegisteredIndependant,
Don't make the obsession with Palin more important or complicated than it is. The media gives equal attention to Lindsay Lohan, and for the same reason it's obssessed by Palin. Controversy, divisivness, titulation, hot scoops----this is the sex the media thrives on, and Palin delivers.
piktor
And currently Lady Gaga is also the flavor of the month. What's not to love?
RegisteredIndependent
I'm not the one making it important at all. All the coverage (and snarky remarks) are what's keeping this topic alive. I'm sure it wouldn't be happening if she wasn't such a threat to the NeoLibs.
She's not an entertainer like Lohan, and the MSM obsession with her is simply to get people to relegate her to the status of Lohan et al. Trouble is, it ain't working.
RawhideRex
"All New Sarah Palin??""
Um no....but nice try. She is still the same "blame everyone else for my mistakes" and the "media is out the get me" hack job she always was.
On top of not being terribly bright...she takes everything as a personal attack (even though she can dish it out with the best of em)... NOT someone we want in the white house.
cbeenthere
SP gets the interview of her dreams at last. It was only for her fan club. I didn't watch.
cbeenthere
No offense to her, of course.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.