Palin Story Sparks Catfight in McCain Crew

(NEWSER) - Bill Kristol comes to the defense of Sarah Palin today in the wake of the “hit piece” about her in Vanity Fair. In a blog on the Weekly Standard, Kristol says the lengthy—and negative—article by “lefty journalist” Todd Purdum “is full of dubious claims, and is dependent on self-serving stories provided on background by some of the people who ran the McCain campaign into the ground.” More»

Pro-Palin camp fed columnist 'a constant stream of poison'

(NEWSER) - As Bill Kristol used his New York Times column to relentlessly praise Sarah Palin and simultaneously blast the McCain camp's handling of her, he was far from an objective observer, writes Scott Horton in the Daily Beast. Kristol regularly received inside information from the McCain team's pro-Palin contingent, then used it in a series of increasingly critical columns. "Simply put, the pundit meddled in the campaign he was commenting on," says Horton. More»

Former McCain strategist calls 'Game Change' 'very accurate'

(NEWSER) - Steve Schmidt, the former John McCain campaign strategist portrayed by Woody Harrelson in HBO's Game Change, pulled no punches when describing his reaction to the book on MSNBC this morning. "I think it was very accurate. For all of us in the campaign, it really rang true. It gave you a little bit of PTSD at times," he said, before going on to add that Sarah Palin was "not prepared" to potentially assume the presidency when the campaign chose her as the VP candidate, and that the very "notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly." More»

And Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin is still pretty scary: reactions

(NEWSER) - If you thought Julianne Moore's Sarah Palin was terrifying in the first Game Change teaser , wait until you see her in the full trailer, where she utters lines such as, "We have to win this thing. I so don’t want to go back to Alaska." Watch below, then read on for some reactions:

• This will clearly be "a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little-known governor into the limelight," writes Jon Bershad at Mediaite . "The full trailer ... gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the 'monster' they’ve created."

HBO debuts first teaser

(NEWSER) - For all of you who have spent the past nine months wondering how Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin impersonation will stack up against Tina Fey’s , you finally have your answer. HBO debuted its first teaser trailer for Game Change, the film due in March that's based on the Mark Halperin-John Heilemann book about the 2008 presidential election. Neither Ed Harris as John McCain nor Woody Harrelson as top adviser Steve Schmidt sound much like their real-life counterparts, notes David Jackson in USA Today , but Moore’s Palin is spot-on: Numerous publications including People , New York , the Huffington Post , and Jezebel are fairly impressed. More»