Sure, Oprah’s broadcast had lots of good bits, from Palin’s statement that a run for the White House in 2012 is “not on my radar screen right now,” to the conciliatory Thanksgiving dinner invitation she says she proffered Levi Johnston, the father of daughter Bristol’s baby.
But the outtakes have great stuff, too. Some are posted on Oprah’s website.
Among the most interesting items:
Sarah’s journal. In discussing how and why the ex-governor of Alaska came to write her memoir, “Going Rogue,” Ms. Palin said “I have a journalism degree and have journalled all of my life.”
Oprah jumped at this, asking Palin when she first started writing down her thoughts. For a second, the question hangs there, giving the impression that perhaps Oprah has caught Palin out in some kind of misstatement.
But Palin jumps back in, saying she’s kept a dairy since she was in elementary school, and that recently she and her sister went over the diary entries. Lots of them dealt with chopping wood.
“Almost every day I have some kind of entry about having to stack firewood in order to heat the home,” Palin told Oprah.
Democracy in the Palin family. Palin told Oprah that at various points in her political life she has gathered all her family together, and the kids and her husband Todd have voted on her course of action.
“I’ve abided by the results of some of the polls that the kids have partaken in,” she said.
Joining Sen. John McCain’s presidential ticket was not one of those moments, though. When Palin thought Senator McCain was on the verge of asking her to be his running mate, she called her husband, who urged her to seize the opportunity.
“He said, yep, he would be there for me, and with me, and he has been,” said Palin.
Joe Lieberman sets Palin free. Palin said she found prepping for the vice-presidential debate onerous, in the sense that she thought the McCain campaign was force-feeding her answers to various questions. At one point, McCain’s good friend Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) of Connecticut came into the darkened hotel room where aides was peppering her with data.
Senator Lieberman said that the effort was “overly scripted,” and threw everybody out of the room, Palin told Oprah.
According to Palin, Liebrman said, “I think I know you well enough already, Gov. Palin, to know that you need to be free, you need some liberty, you need to speak from the heart.”
Lieberman told her to trust herself and have fun.
“Those things were so simplistic but so absolutely real and helpful at the time,” said Palin. “I was so thankful for his words.”
Sarah Palin impersonates Tina Fey. Palin told Oprah that at first she was only dimly aware of the popularity of Ms. Fey’s impersonations of her on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL). At one point, she saw a clip of the show, with the volume down.
“I thought it was me,” said Palin.
Later, when she went on SNL to try and neutralize the act a bit, she met Fey backstage. At the time, Fey was holding her three-year-old daughter Alice.
Alice looked at her mother, then at Palin, then back again.
“I said, ‘We’re confusing your daughter’,” said Palin. “And we were.”
Then Palin told Oprah that for years, people in Alaska had been telling her she looked like that gal on Saturday Night Live. So one Halloween, she dressed up as Tina Fey.
“Yeah, I did. I went one year as Tina Fey,” Palin said.
In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, Palin, whose book, "Going Rogue: An American Life," lands on bookshelves Tuesday, said she would give the president a mere four for his job performance on a scale of one to 10.
"There are a lot of decisions being made that I -- and probably the majority of Americans -- are not impressed with right now," said Palin, the former governor of Alaska. "I think our economy is not being put on the right track, because we're strayed too far from, fundamentally, from free enterprise principles that built our country. And I question, too, some of the dithering, and, hesitation, with some of our national security questions that have got to be answered for our country."
She argued that the president has moved away from the "free enterprise principles that built our country" and, echoing former Vice President Dick Cheney, suggested he is "dithering" in making a decision on a way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Even after last year's devastating defeat, Palin remains one of the Republican Party's brightest stars. From Alaska, she has been weighing in on issues and influencing policy debate in Washington.
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