Sarah Palin is back in Alaska and responding to the stories that have come out about her role in the McCain campaign:
ANCHORAGE — Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska fired back Friday at the unnamed McCain campaign aides who have been maligning her in recent days, saying that their criticism was “cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks.”
Ms. Palin spoke out upon her return to the governor’s office here, defending herself from a barrage of criticism that has been aimed at her from unnamed McCain aides ever since the McCain-Palin ticket was defeated Tuesday.
(…)
Ms. Palin told reporters in Alaska that the anonymous criticism was “cowardly,” and that she had discussed the campaign’s position on Nafta at her debate prep sessions.
“I remember having a discussion with a couple of debate preppers,” she said. “So if it came from one of those debate preppers, you know, that’s curious. But having a discussion about Nafta — not, ‘Oh my goodness, I don’t know who is a part of Nafta.’ ”
“So, no, I think that if there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about Nafta, and about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context,” Ms. Palin said. “And that’s cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks, if they came away with it taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It is not fair and not right.”
Ms. Palin fought back after the infighting had made its way up to Senator John McCain, who made it clear that that he was upset by the back and forth, and ordered his campaign workers to stop it, aides said. Some in the staff worried that questioning the qualifications of the woman Mr. McCain had chosen as his running mate was damaging his reputation.
Ms. Palin said that her experience made her realize how brutal national politics could be. And she had some pungent criticism of the national news media, saying that there had been some bad apples in the bunch.
“For the most part, absolutely, media persons, reporters, have been absolutely right on and there has been fairness and objectivity,” she said. “There have been some stinkers, though, who have kind of made the whole basket full of apples, once in a while, smell kind of bad.”
Here’s the video:
Call it step number one on the Sarah Palin rehabilitation tour. Step two will be next week when she’s interviewed by Greta Van Susterin next week. And step three ? Well, apparently, she’ll be at the CPAC conference next February.
We haven’t heard the last of Sarah Palin.
