The clip above has been featured on The O'Reilly Factor, and on Glenn Beck's radio show, making Jackie a minor conservative heroine. One YouTube poster asks, "Can't the young girl just get her book signed without being interrogated by MSNBC?" and Jackie herself apparently thinks Ms. O'Donnell's questions about Sarah Palin's support for the bailout were unfair. Here's how she frames the encounter on the blog Red, White & Conservative:

I noticed [O'Donnell] look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry (I don't remember if she called or not, she may have. But she was on her blackberry), then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me. She told us she'd be walking up to us. You know like she just stumbled upon us. The shot began… I kept telling myself answer her question well, don't freak out. Well, I thought she'd ask me the same question. She asked the man beside me (who by the way is NOT my dad) the same question she had before we went on air. Myself on the other hand, not the same story. She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me "Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout" to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped. I asked her where she got her fact and she read her little note.

So was O'Donnell's Blackberry-tapping "craftiness," or just responsible fact-checking prior to asking a question? Several commenters on Red, White & Conservative call the question about the bailout an "ambush," but is it really so underhanded for a journalist to be prepared with information? O'Donnell doesn't really "interrogate" Jackie or go out of her way to humiliate her — she moves on relatively quickly to her next question — and while perhaps a teenager wasn't the most ideal person to talk to, Jackie's t-shirt did indicate some familiarity with issues. Jackie's reaction and those of her supporters mirror the anti-liberal-media attacks of Carrie Prejean and Sarah Palin, and echo the increasingly common conservative claim that the media is doing something immoral whenever someone on the right looks bad. Jackie writes,

In one day I met a role model, and met the liberal media and their crafty schemes. I fell prey to liberal bias, but I'd like to think I did an okay job. [...] But unlike Norah I didnt have my note cards with me. I was forced to think on the spot and answer a gotcha question. Her goal was clear, make this teenager look like an uneducated Palin supporting buffoon. To liberals, and the 5 people who watch MSNBC she succeeded. To conservatives, she was the only buffoon during that interview.

Maybe Palin fans think O'Donnell comes off like a buffoon for asking a teenager a legitimate question. But what's clear from Jackie's experience is that to some conservatives, a "gotcha" question is just one you don't have the answer to.

Palin Fan Responds To O'Donnell Interview [Politico]
The Day I Met Sarah Palin…And The Liberal Media [Red, White & Conservative]
Norah O'Donnell Grills A Young Girl For Her Support Of Sarah Palin [YouTube]

Palin's Oprah appearance was in some ways disappointing, as she buttered up her host and hewed closely to talking points already leaked from the book. Things really only got interesting when she let her guard down and started calling Levi "Ricky Hollywood." Going Rogue is much the same story. Don't read the book for Palin's lengthy descriptions of Alaska energy policy (short version: she believes she helped usher in a "mutually beneficial relationship between government and industry") or for her recommendations for the future of America (short version: Reaganomics). Don't read it for her justifications of her resignation (we've heard them all before) or even for her explanation of how she would have managed her role in the McCain campaign differently (even she acknowledges that they probably still would've lost). Read it for the insults. Or, better yet, just read the insults, and save yourself $28.99.

On anti-corporate liberals (aka Commies):

In national politics, some feel that Big Business is always opposed to the Little Guy. Some people seem to think a profit motive is inherently greedy and evil, and that what's good for business is bad for people. (That's what Karl Marx thought too.)

On Ashley Judd:

One animal rights group recruited a perky, pretty celebrity to attack our scientifically-controlled, state-managed wolf-control program. It was ironic that she opposed using guns to kill predators that would cause Native people to starve, but apparently not opposed to taking movie roles in which she'd use guns to kill predatory people.

On John Kerry:

I recalled Senator John Kerry's comment to California college students in 2006: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
What a loon, I thought. What an elitist loon.

On Vogue readers:

We were bombarded with interview requests, including, believe it or not, a Vogue magazine profile of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and me in a fashion shoot. [...] Since fashion trends weren't my top interest, I kept bringing the Vogue writer's questions back to national security and energy independence. That made it tough for her, as she was doing her best to write for readers who cared about the latest Fifth Avenue styles and probably wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of Sorels. She finally had to stop me and nicely say she had heard enough about energy. I just couldn't pivot from hydropower to high fashion, so the interview wasn't that great for her readers, I'm sure.

On Katie Couric:

By September 29, the day of the bailout vote, we had fallen behind. That bracket of time also included my seemingly endless serial chat with the lowest-rated news anchor in network television, CBS's Katie Couric. [...]

Katie asked me if I thought it was possible to "pray away gay" — to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality through prayer. Hmmm, I thought. Odd question. I don't think she really wanted to hear my answer because she interrupted me five times as I tried to give it. The badgering had begun. This is really annoying me, I thought. Then she asked me about abortion and the morning-after pill twelve times. Twelve different times.
I answered as graciously and as patiently as I could. Each time, I reiterated my pro-life, pro-woman, pro-adoption position. But no matter how many ways I tried to say it, Katie responded by asking the question again in a slightly different way. I began to feel like I was in the movie Groundhog Day. [...]

I felt sick about the depths to which some in the press had apparently sunk, not because it was unfair to me and John, but because it was unfair to the American electorate.

On cap-and-trade policies:

As more and more Americans understand that cap and trade is an environmentalist Ponzi scheme in which only the government benefits, they will refuse to tolerate it.

On Levi Johnston:

[Track Palin] talked about watching his sister be humiliated on national television as her former boyfriend went on his fact-free kiss-and-tell media tour. Track knew the kid was making things up.

On the Democratic party:

There are many fine Democrat public servants, but sadly many in the party have moved increasingly to the left, and often the beating heart of their political warfare has been the personal destruction of their enemies. Generally speaking, after decades of failed social policies and weak national security positions, the party doesn't have a strong base of success from which to win political arguments. So it targets people instead of ideas.

And finally, epically, on the media:

[...] I will state this complaint for the record: what used to be called "mainstream" national media are, in many respects, worthless as a source of factual information anymore. The sin of omission glares in their reporting. Perhaps national press outlets just don't have the resources anymore to devote to balanced coverage. Perhaps they've all just given up on themselves, so we've given up on them too, except to treat their shoddy reporting like a car crash — sometimes you just have to look. The time has come to acknowledge that it is counterfeit objectivity the liberal media try to sell consumers. A period in the great American experiment has passed. We are moving into a new, more intelligent realm to gather information differently in order to hold our government accountable. Thank God there are still a few credible broadcasters on cable news, plus informative talk radio, common sense blogs, and some fine, fact-based print publications. Beware of the left's attempt to silence these — as they have already with the bogus "Fairness Doctrine," which attempts to blunt the force of conservative talk radio — and join me in being all over it when censoring efforts crop up.

Of course, there's more in Going Rogue, from a detailed list of complaints against McCain staffers who attempted to police Palin to an argument that parental notification laws for abortion offer young girls "support and protection" to an explanation of Palin's views on evolution (she believes in it, sort of). But really, her constant criticism of the "liberal media" for its attacks on her is somewhat hypocritical, since attacking others is actually her best skill. Of course, it's hard to tell where Palin ends and ghostwriter Lynn Vincent begins, but ever since her comment that "a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities," she's set herself up as a contemporary poet of the dis. She doesn't always have her facts straight, but she knows how to turn the knife, and it's when so turning that she seems most authentically herself. On Oprah, Palin didn't rule out starting her own talk show, and perhaps she'll yet become the next Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly, offering her sharp if oddly-hewn barbs in response to what she sees as liberal media attacks. Because even though she says she wanted to give a message of unity in her nixed concession speech, what Sarah Palin really excels at is good, old-fashioned mudslinging.

Going Rogue: An American Life [Amazon]

Today, Palin’s office has accused the media of taking her remarks out of context “to create adversarial situations.” She continues to blame “independent bloggers” for the persisting (are they?) rumors that Trig is not her child. In a statement released by her office, Palin was quoted as saying: “As a public official, I expect criticism and I expect to be held accountable for how I govern, but the personal, salacious nature of recent reporting, and often the refusal of the media to correct obvious mistakes, unfortunately discredits too many in journalism today, making it difficult for many Americans to believe what they see in the media.”

Palin is particularly bothered by the press coverage of her interview with John Ziegler, clips of which were released yesterday. She claims that her comments were taken out of context and distorted to made it appear as though she was accusing the media of being “soft” on Caroline Kennedy, when she was actually commenting on the “arbitrary ways in which news organizations determine the level and kind of scrutiny given to those who aspire to public office," a distinction that is still unclear to us.

In an interview with MSNBC's David Shuster today, Ziegler responded to Palin’s newest complaints. He claimed that “what is posted on YouTube is fully in context, and puts the governor in her exactly accurate light. I don’t think that there is any remotely accurate accusation that anything was taken out of context here, and I think that will be very clear when we make the entire interview available.” Ziegler went on to accuse MSNBC of “character assassination” and taking the Katie Couric clip “out of context” (despite the fact that he just refuted Palin’s claims of being taken out of context, but whatever). As the interview continues, Ziegler became more and more irate, eventually calling Shuster a “joke,” to which Shuster responded: “John, the joke is the fact that you and Sarah Palin can’t take any responsibility for the fact that she wasn’t prepared to run for vice president.”

Palin Accuses Media Of 'Personal, Salacious' Reporting [CNN]
Shuster Vs. Palin Interviewer on MSNBC [Mediabistro/TV Newser]

In Ziegler’s new documentary How Obama Got Elected, clips of which just went up online, the "Mama Grizzly" bitches and moans about everything from her disastrous interview with Katie Couric to Tina Fey’s portrayal of her on SNL. Palin believes that she is still subject to unfair press coverage, and asks “Is it political? Is it sexism? What is it that drives someone to believe the worst and perpetuate the worst in terms of gossip and lies?” (Speaking of lies, let us count them, shall we?)

Palin also says that Tina Fey and Katie Couric have been “exploiting” her and “capitalizing” on her fame. According to Palin, she realized that the interviews with Couric weren’t going so well half-way through and wanted to back out, but the mean old McCain campaign made her do it anyway (which seems to be her excuse for everything these days). She completely glosses over her own lack of preparation, blaming the campaign for making her look like an idiot, when really, she was the only wise one: “it was told to me that, yeah, we are going to go back for more. And going back for more was not a wise decision either.” Also, she uses the age-old excuse familiar to anyone who watches reality TV (editing!), saying CBS “spliced it together,” and that “many of the topics brought up were not portrayed as accurately as they could have, should have, been.”

Palin claims that she never saw the final interview, and when asked why she couldn’t answer Katie’s question “What newspapers do you read?” she responds: “Because, Katie, you’re not the center of everybody’s universe.” She says her answer was “flippant” (right) and that “I read newspapers! I read publications!... That’s my job.”

Palin goes on to blame even the (air quotes) mainstream media in Alaska for unfair treatment of her. She trumpets her status as a reformer, but blames the media for being too fickle and turning on her “the minute that is, that I have done something, that is, you know, back to the conservative roots… that’s when even the mainstream media in Alaska, they turn on ya. There’s so much hypocrisy in it all.” But, see, if only she had run on the Democratic ticket, then things would have been better: “Had I been chosen perhaps to run as a reformer on the Democrat ticket, we would have seen an absolutely different, and I think, if you will, a much prettier profile of Sarah Palin and the Palin family.”

Palin: Media Goes Easy On Kennedy [Politico]
Palin On Olbermann: 'THAT Guy Is EVIL' [Think Progress]

Related: The Twelve Lies Of Sarah Palin [Andrew Sullivan]