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I can't think of anyone less qualified than the Snowbilly from Wasilla to weigh in on who Mitt Romney ought to pick for his running mate in the upcoming presidential election, but apparently Sean Hannity believes inquiring minds want to know. And of course Palin used it as an opportunity to beat up on that "liberal media" that supposedly treated her unfairly when McCain picked her as his running mate.

HANNITY: Question Governor and four years ago you were selected and you didn't know you were going to be selected, you were telling me, until what, four days until you were, you didn't know you were even being vetted four days prior, which is a pretty amazing story.

The names I hear most often are Portman in Ohio, Rubio in Florida and Paul Ryan, who will be on this program tomorrow night, from Wisconsin. Good choices?

PALIN: They are good choices. They are and I think that Gov. Romney will probably play it safe, relatively speaking in terms of finding someone who is a known commodity, so that the media doesn't do what the media did to me; making things up and kind of trashing somebody's reputation and record in order to distract from what the election really was supposed to be about.

So, those are good names. There are other great names out there being batted around and I look forward to seeing who that one is who can assist Gov. Romney in moving forward.

I hate to break it to you Sarah, but if there was some damage done to your reputation, you brought it on yourself and I think John McCain's staffers like Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace who dished out the dirt for Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's book, Game Change, that HBO made into a movie did your reputation as much or more damage as anything you can blame on the so called "lamestream media" you love to bash and that you now work for. If what was represented in that movie is true, they were pretty horrified by the fact that you were not remotely qualified to be vice president or step in as president if something happened to his health not too long after McCain picked you to run with him.

Now sadly, we can all thank him for inflicting you on the American body politic and as a new member of the wingnut welfare club for years to come over at Fox noise, where propagandist and fellow right-wing flame thrower Hannity thinks you have anything of value to add to the discussion on who else should potentially be allowed to be one breath away from being our next president, that we might rightfully be terrified of, as anyone with an ounce of sense was of you.

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In the wake of Mitt Romney soon having to choose a running mate of his own, former presidential candidate John McCain was asked by PBS's Charlie Rose about his lack of regret for now infamously picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.

McCain stuck to his ground with his choice of Palin, despite the recent revelations that have come out after the release of Game Change, where much of McCain's former staff spilled the beans that they did not think she was remotely qualified to be president.

Par for the course when conservatives are backed up against the wall with bad decisions they've made, McCain chose to play the victim card for Palin as one of the reasons he's continuing to defend her. Because heaven forbid she and he should be rightfully criticized for the fact he should have never let this woman come "one heartbeat" away from the presidency if McCain had won the last election.

McCain asked "what the point was" that his former running mate was continuing to be savaged in the press. I guess it might have something to do with the fact that she's still fully willing to interject herself into that conversation by joining Uncle Rupert's wingnut welfare brigade over at Fox and the fact that she is more than happy to have the media reporting on whatever her latest ghost writer was posting on her Facebook page. Given the fact that Palin is apparently still craving the limelight, his protests here ring pretty hollow.

McCain can complain all he wants about how unfairly he thinks his former running mate has been treated in the media, but that will never excuse him for his maleficence and responsibility for inflicting that woman on the rest of us and on the fact that someone in our corporate media is going to pay to have her on the air even if it's not Fox. McCain has helped to dumb down the American electorate by putting Palin in the spotlight to begin with and with giving her a format for the right to be listening to her in the first place.

After hearing this interview with Charlie Rose among a number of others where he's expressed the same sentiments, it's apparent inflicting Sarah Palin on the rest of us is something he's never going to admit he was wrong for doing, much less apologize for.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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Completely ignoring Cal Thomas' very ugly remarks about Rachel Maddow at CPAC, where he said that "she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception" Fox News Watch host Jon Scott asked the panel this week if there really is a "war on women" or if it's just a ploy created by the left.

The segment opened with some video of Hillary Clinton weighing in on the matter at the Women of the World Summit and the best Jim Pinkerton could come up with was to say it proved she's running for president in 2016, because she dared to weigh in on "political" matters instead of staying above the fray in her position as Secretary of State.

Judith Miller shot back and talked about all the sorts of sexist attacks Hillary Clinton has had to endure over the years and applauded her for speaking out. Cal Thomas responded by citing some poll that was supposedly quoted by The New York Times, saying that 46-44 percent of women agreed it was alright for employers to opt out of contraceptive coverage and that you don't see enough conservative women having a chance to speak out on the matter (I guess he doesn't watch his own network) as proof that somehow conservative women aren't being given the same treatment as liberal women in the media.

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Sums it up quite nicely. Via comedian Joe Mande.

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A former senior strategist for Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) 2008 presidential campaign says that the depiction of Sarah Palin by actress Julianne Moore in HBO's film "Game Change" was "very accurate."

"I think for all of us that were in the campaign it really rang true," Steve Schmidt told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski on Monday. "It gave you a little bit of [post traumatic stress disorder] PTSD at times."

In the movie, Schmidt's character -- played by Woody Harrelson -- deals with a mentally unstable Palin who knows little about foreign policy and often refuses to cooperate with the campaign.

"I think when you look back at that race, you see person who's just so phenomenally talented in so many levels, an ability to connect, but also someone who had a lot flaws and someone running to be in the national command authority who clearly wasn't prepared," the former McCain aide explained. "Someone was nominated to the vice presidency who was vastly unprepared to take the oath of office should it become necessary, and as it has become necessary many times in America."

Schmidt added that losing the election was not as bad as the idea of Palin someday becoming president.

"What's worse in that context for me is with regard to the country that I love, that I have family members in the uniformed services in the armed services," he said. "We have 100,000 people in Afghanistan. When a result happens that puts someone who is not prepared to be president on the ticket, that's a bad result."

"I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly."

On Sunday, McCain continued to defend his vice presidential selection, saying that Palin was the "best qualified" person for the job.

“I thought she was the best qualified person,” he told Fox News host Chris Wallace. “I thought she had the ability to excite our party, and the kind of person that I wanted to see succeed in the political arena."

“What I don’t understand, even in the tough world of politics, why there continues to be such assaults on a good and decent person, Sarah Palin, a fine family person, a person whose nomination energized our campaign,” McCain remarked. “We were in the lead and they continue to attack and disparage her character and her person.”

Watch this clip from HBO's "Game Change."

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(H/T: Mediaite)

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After watching the movie adaptation of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's "Game Change" this weekend on HBO, the one thing I found surprising about the movie is just how big of an emotional mess Sarah Palin was almost straight from the get-go after they recruited her to run with John McCain after not being properly vetted, and the campaign started finding out all of the dirt on her that they should have known about ahead of time if they were doing their jobs.

Which led to scenes like the one above where Palin was none to happy with staffer Nicolle Wallace after her disastrous interview with Katie Couric. I'm sure we can all take a lot of what was in the movie with a grain of salt, due to the fact that a lot of what was in it came from campaign staffers stabbing each other and McCain in the back for their terrible decision to draft Palin in the first place, and other anonymous sources, but on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Wallace admitted that the scene above was "true enough" to make her squirm.

That didn't stop former Dick Cheney adviser, Mary Matalin from calling it a work of fiction, even though she wasn't there herself. Leave it to Matalin to still be carrying water for Palin since she's been one of her staunchest defenders from day one. I expect we'll be hearing more of the same type of sentiments from Republicans who still don't want to admit that McCain made a huge mistake picking her, that she was not ready for the job and that it helped to tank his candidacy, whether every detail in the book or movie are completely accurate or not. The overall theme of the movie and how she was portrayed was pretty obvious to most of us watching that campaign at the time as the events actually occurred in real time.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain is still adamant that no one was more qualified than Sarah Palin to be vice president in 2008.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked the Arizona senator to respond to HBO's movie "Game Change," which implies that he only selected Palin because she was a woman.

"I thought she was the best qualified person," McCain insisted. "I thought she had the ability to excite our party, and the kind of person that I wanted to see succeed in the political arena. She was a very effective and successful governor [of Alaska]. Again, I look forward and not back."

"What I don't understand, even in the tough world of politics, why there continues to be such assaults on a good and decent person, Sarah Palin, a fine family person, a person whose nomination energized our campaign," he said. "We were in the lead and they continue to attack and disparage her character and her person."

But it was the way he was portrayed by actor Ed Harris that seemed to most get under McCain's skin.

"I'm portrayed as using an exceeding amount of coarse language," the failed nominee explained. "I don't use coarse language very often. I have a larger vocabulary than that."

"I was going to say that in the movie -- which I watched part of -- you swear like a sailor," Wallace noted. "But I guess that would be unfair to sailors."

(Nicole Belle): Like his laughable claim that he never called himself a "maverick" -- despite 2,000 incidents of him doing exactly that on the 2008 campaign trail -- McCain is rewriting his personal history and forgetting that news reports are forever. Like this one from 2007:

An angry, profane exchange between Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and another Republican senator last week prompted a new round of questions Monday about whether McCain's legendary temper is becoming a liability to his campaign for the presidency.

In a private meeting just off the Senate floor, McCain got into a shouting match Thursday with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., over details of a compromise on immigration legislation. Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy with his campaign to take part in the negotiations, prompting McCain to utter, "F... you."

McCain spokesman Danny Diaz acknowledged Monday that a "spirited exchange" took place but said media reports over the weekend had exaggerated its intensity.

McCain's political handlers have plenty of experience in explaining McCain's salty language and strident attacks. His temper has ranged far and wide, directed at other members of the Senate, congressional staffers, government agency chiefs, corporate chieftains, high-ranking military officers and even teenage campaign volunteers.

McCain has shouted at people for any number of reasons, including errors of judgment, disagreements on public policy and even how to set up a podium.

"In McCain's world, there aren't legitimate differences of opinions," said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which differs with McCain on some conservative issues. "There is his way and there is evil. That is how he approaches issues. That is one of the reasons for conservative nervousness about him."

His temper has been an issue for years.

In the 2000 presidential bid, McCain was dubbed "Senator Hothead" by Newsweek. . That year, he won endorsement from only a few Senate colleagues, not so much because of his conservative credentials but because of his frequent attacks and volatile personality. "McCain notes," which offer apologies after heated words, are held by many members of Congress.

It's a nice to adopt the Mr. Rogers tone when on television, but no one -- not any of the media McCain loves to court to get these little Sunday show gigs -- will deny both McCain's nasty temperament nor his potty mouth.

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Failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin says that she has created more jobs for impersonators than President Barack Obama has created in total during during his entire presidency.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Palin how she rated Julianne Moore's impersonation of her in HBO's upcoming film "Game Change."

"I think we're going to call that The Sarah Palin Employment Act," Palin declared. "And you guys need to thank me for employing more people probably in their imitations of Sarah Palin than the president has put Americans to work."

[Scarce edit: Palin used the same joke almost a year ago when word came out about the film. See this clip with Hannity.]

"So it's a stimulus act?" Wallace asked.

"It is a stimulus act!" the half-term Alaska governor agreed. "Goodness gracious. I'm really not too concerned, though, about an HBO movie based on a false narrative when there are so many other things that we need to be concerned about."

"The movie echoes the book in pursuing this narrative that you went into a funk during the campaign leading up especially to the debate," Wallace noted.

"I'm sorry that millions of people are going to waste their time," Palin quipped. "I was never in a funk. Thank God I have the right perspective on what really matters in life, Chris. And there's no need to ever be in a funk when we know what right priorities are and what really matters in this life."

"I am ambivalent about it. And I, honestly, will not waste my time watching it, and I encourage others to find something else more productive to do."

Former Republican vice presidential candidate John McCain, who is played by Ed Harris, said earlier this month that he would also refuse to watch the movie.

For any of you HBO subscribers out there, coming March 10th -- You Betcha: Catch a First Viewing of Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in HBO's Game Change:

Last February, HBO started production on Game Change, a television movie that would attempt to explain the Republican Party’s confounding strategy during the 2008 presidential election. Today, the first full-length trailer for the much-anticipated film—which stars Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, Ed Harris as a tired-looking John McCain, and Woody Harrelson as McCain’s campaign chair Steve Schmidt—has surfaced, promising plenty of dramatized campaign plot twists, all of the memorable sound bites of the last election (hockey mom/pit bull analogy included!), and what appear to be stellar performances from the principal cast. Oh, the preview also features a shrill Palin freaking out in a stairwell, a scene that rivals some of Lifetime’s most lurid original-movie moments.

(Scarce edit): Steve Schmidt (Woody Harrelson) is the one who says she's having "a complete mental meltdown".