• 1. The Republican National Committee Is a Ponzi Scheme Palin says McCain charged her $50,000 to be vetted, and the RNC promised it'd pay her back when they won. Obviously, she was not reimbursed. Also obviously, McCain's camp denies this claim.
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• 2. Ethics Complaints Are Expensive At the time of her resignation as Alaska governor, Sarah's legal bills had reached $500,000.
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• 3. She Didn't Want the Clothes Also expensive: Her family's $150K makeover wardrobe, which McCain's staff forced them to buy—against their will!—for their debut. Sarah says the price tags flabbergasted her, and that she was told the clothes were "part of the convention."
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• 4. She Hates Katie Couric Palin "writes at length" about Katie Couric, who is biased, "badgering," and ignorant. Biggest Couric surprise: the McCain camp hired Katie's stylist for Sarah.
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• 5. Mostly, Though, She Pities Katie Sarah Palin's infamous interview with Couric was given out of pity, because Sarah wanted to do the ratings-averse female anchor a favor. Also, campaign aide Nicolle Wallace (the scapegoat for Palin's $150K shopping fiasco) said Couric would identify with her as a "working mother."
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• 6. She's Naming Names Speaking of campaign scapegoats: Mark Halperin reports that Palin names the campaign aides she thinks undermined her on the trail. Smart money's on Wallace and Steve Schmidt getting dragged through the mud.
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• 7. Her Literary Taste Tends Toward the 7th Grade Palin's favorite books are middle school classics The Pearl by John Steinbeck and Animal Farm by George Orwell, the latter of which she considers an uplifting political story. If those pigs beat the odds, so can I.
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• 8. The Campaign Handled Bristol's Pregnancy Wrong Palin says she rewrote the first public statement about her daughter's pregnancy, but the McCain campaign kept her "bottled up" and used their original statement instead. She found out when she heard a news anchor reading it on TV. She thought the campaign's statement inappropriately glamorized teen pregnancy.
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• 9. Levi Who? Most conspicuous absence: Levi Johnston, who is not mentioned even once in the book, including Palin's retelling of events at which he was present.
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• 10. No Flipping to the Back Second-most conspicuous absence: an index, which Halperin says is "subtle revenge on the party's Washington establishment, whose members tend to flip to the back pages and scan for their own names." This is possible, but I'm much more inclined to believe that her editors plumb forgot that this peculiar, vapid woman they were working with is an actual politician, who actually interacts with important people, and slipped into Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul mode by accident.

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  Update: AP's copy of Going Rogue wasn't an advanced copy—it was a leak!

Halperin is a well-compensated idiot. Here's what he said on MSNBC in January on why Barack Obama is an abject failure and exactly like George Bush:

This is a really bad sign for Barack Obama to try to change Washington.... He needs bipartisan solutions. They went for it and they came up with zero.... [This] does not bode well for a future that is supposed to be post-partisan... [Obama] could have gone for centrist compromises. You can say to your own party, "Sorry, some of you liberals aren't going to like it, but I am going to change this legislation radically to get a big centrist majority rather than an all-Democratic vote." He chose not to do that, that's the exact path that George Bush took for most of his presidency with disastrous consequences for bipartisanship and solving big problems.

But now Obama is dominating, because that's what it seems like now, so why not blast it from the rooftops as HALPERIN'S TAKE because people seem to listen to him?

Halperin's vapid weather-vane reversal spells doom for Obama, though, because as David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager who is known to concern himself with real things in the actual world as opposed to the contours of Mark Halperin's ego, used to say on the trail: "If Politico and Halperin say we're winning, we're losing."

Mr. President: You are now losing.

Halperin, who inflicted The Note on the world before moving to Time, sold an option HBO Films to turn into a movie his forthcoming 2008 campaign book Game Change, even though that book is effectively an extended correction on his last book.

The studio, which does projects for both the eponymous premium cable channel and the big screen, has already hired a writer (Charles Leavitt) to do the screen adaptation.

Halperin will serve as a consultant to the movie, alongside John Heilemann, the New York magazine political writer he's been blessed to have as a co-author on the book. HBO will need all the help it can get: Like the book, the film Game Change will attempt to track three campaigns and five politicians

Usually a movie like this would take you behind the scenes of a campaign, but there's only so deep you can go when you're hopping between Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and John McCain. (Sad Joe Biden will apparently be reduced to a bit part.) Maybe HBO is thinking miniseries.

In any case, it will be fun to watch the casting decisions unfold, and to relive the 2008 campaign through the eyes of a man who thought John McCain was on fire the week he said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Maybe we'll find out he was right after all.

1. Mark Penn The world's worst pollster delivered Bill Clinton the White House in 1996, you know, when he ran against a literal wooden board in a suit named Bob Dole, so obviously Penn was well-qualified to organize the series of damaging turf wars that was the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, a squabbling joke of smears and slap-dash message reinvention. He charged her a zillion dollars to lose and everyone in the world hates him. Of course he is releasing a book about these little demographic groups he makes up and he is also a columnist at a famous newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

2. Bill Kristol Bill is also a columnist for a famous newspaper, the New York Times. He invented Sarah Palin. He is a sad pathetic moron whose shame at his own intellectual dishonesty occasionally threatens to break through the surface of his constant lying, to himself and to the nation, about everything. He will probably not be a columnist at the Times for very much longer but he does still have his very own Rupert Murdoch magazine, and his last name.

3. Mark Halperin Mark Halperin used to write a little blog for ABC called "The Note," and it was a terrible thing that was in some part responsible for how bankrupt and idiotic the beltway press was during the late '90s and early 2000s. Then he left to go write a blog for Time and now no one pays attention to him, thank god. But he still writes bad books, like his one a couple years ago about how The Way To Win was to worship Matt Drudge and Karl Rove and Be a Republican. The week John McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," and finally lost the damn election for good, Halperin blogged that Senator McCain "http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/mark-halperin-somehow-con_n_127512.html?page=3">won the week. He will keep his well-paying job at Time forever, or until somewhere else hires him to do the same thing, which is be wrong 100% of the time. Also he'll release a book with someone smarter than him and he'll go on conservative talk radio to fellate Hugh Hewitt as Hewitt bloodies him with a bullwhip, sexily, again.

4. Jeff Jarvis The entertainment journalist who got internet famous for blogging about batteries or something is now the official overpaid consultant of saving the newsmedia, even though he doesn't really know what reporters do (he is pretty sure they should blog about batteries or something). If you give him $1,000 and fly him to Qatar he'll save your newspaper, with a panel discussion.

5. Wolf Blitzer and everyone else at CNN. Wolf basically represents everything wrong with CNN. He just makes noises. Meaningless syllables. He fills up time, so much time, with these nonsense syllables, saying nothing, at all, ever. And CNN this year sucked. Anderson Cooper's show is ratings-grabbing fluff nonsense. The Magic Wall iPhone election map thing is stupid. The fucking holograms! Campbell Brown accepts no bullshit, stop bullshitting Campbell Brown. Oh, and they still let Lou Dobbs fear-monger every day for what seems like three hours of hate. Ugh. Go away, CNN.

6. Steve Schmidt This is kind of a no-brainer, because he lost a presidential election, which is a sure way to make it on one of these lists, but the extent of his failure is still kinda under-appreciated. He destroyed the brand of the Republican party's formerly most sellable asset, Senator Johnny Maverickseed, and hence crippled the party for at least two years. Hah. He is the man on this list most likely to be at least underemployed in 2009, though he won't go hungry.

7. Jimmy Fallon Jimmy can stand in for Jay Leno and Ben Silverman and everyone else at NBC. They have two good scripted sitcoms, and the rest is nonstop garbage. And now this once-forgotten nobody gets Letterman's old show! And national nightmare Jay Leno will be on every day at 10 pm! And Conan will be shipped out to LA in order to become bland and unappealing! 2009 will be a bad year for not wanting to shoot your television set.

8. Robert Rubin and everyone who has ever worked for him. Rubin broke the economy, and trained a new generation of democratic finance-wizards who helped break the pieces of the economy into smaller pieces, and then he went to work for Citigroup, where he still draws a nice fucking salary, after shepherding through legislation that allowed for the creation of Citigroup, a massive financial services conglomerate that also broke the economy, this year. Everyone who worked for him will now fix the economy with their fancy new jobs in Barack Obama's administration.

9. Michael Bloomberg Go away, old man, we're sick of you.

10. Everyone in New York By "everyone in New York" we mean, obviously, the type of people who actually think they represent "everyone in New York," which means people in media, finance, the "arts," publishing, and whatever the hell people who read blogs do all day, for a living. Not the "everyone in New York" that includes people who live in, like Staten Island or whatever. No, the ones who watch Gossip Girl. Basically all of these people should be unemployed, next year.

Special Bonus "Never Ever Get Fired" Award

Tribune Company Innovation Chief Lee Abrams He is an insane person and every dollar spent on him is a dollar wasted, by a bankrupt company, but he is a treat, and we would miss his memos.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri invoked Malcolm X and called our president-elect a "house negro." Apparently, the international press did not take this criticism seriously, and al-Zawahiri was roundly mocked for tryna start shit. Al-Qaeda message boards are dismayed!

Though hardcore Al-Qaida supporters have predictably dismissed any criticism of Dr. al-Zawahiri and are fiercely backing his choice of words, there is a rather ironic (if not entirely unfamiliar) twist to this issue. After observing international press reporting on the incident, these same supporters are now bitterly attacking the media for its "unfair" pro-Obama bias and for deliberately "confusing" the meaning of al-Zawahiri's message.

Hahahaha al-Qaeda message boards—they're just like The Corner!

The Observer reports on the contenders:

Michael Takiff, on oral historian. He's writing a Bill Clinton biography (though maybe it's been shelved). He's a Nation-contributing lefty, who once also tried to write a book about George McGovern. You might be able to guess how his book would read.

Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. Balz, the consummate Washington Post political correspondent, has been following both campaigns around and probably has the sources to get some good material for a quickie book. It's up to Haynes Johnson, the former civil rights reporter who now writes big grand sweeping statement books about how it's "the age of" something or other, to give it a cohesive narrative. That narrative will probably be pretty middle-of-the-road. And Johnson is probably too old to get THE INTERNET. But maybe it'll be good?

Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Halperin writes The Page for Time. Before that, he wrote The Note for ABC. He became the King of the Washington Press Corps in the '90s when he underminded Clinton and the liberals all the time and sucked Drudge's cock incessantly. He's so far outside reality now that his last book was on how the next president would have to heed the words of Karl Rove and worship at the altar of Drudge. His blog is unreadable and he was dead wrong on the Biden pick, even though he erased the entry and tried to pretend he had it too. Heilmann, though, is the very very good New York Magazine political writer. John, find a different co-author and we're right there with you!

MARK HALPERIN JOINS TIME

(New York, April 30, 2007)—Mark Halperin joins TIME as an editor-at-large and senior political analyst effective May 3, it was announced today by Richard Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME.

One of the most widely respected political reporters in the country, Halperin will contribute regularly to TIME magazine and have a daily presence on TIME.com. Based in New York, he will also maintain an office in the Washington, DC bureau of TIME and will join the magazine's reporting team covering the 2008 elections. He will continue to serve as a political analyst for ABC News, where he has been on staff since 1988. For abcnews.com, Halperin founded and edited the online publication The Note, which has been characterized as the most influential daily tipsheet in American politics by publications including The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair.

"Mark is universally recognized as one of the finest political journalists working today," Stengel said. "His incisive analysis and voice are instantly recognizable, and his addition to TIME's top-notch political team will take our coverage to even greater heights."

"Throughout my career, for journalists and readers, TIME has been the gold standard for political reporting," Halperin said. "I could not be more excited about writing for this evolving news organization—and starting at such a thrilling time in American politics."

From November 1997 until April 2007, Halperin served as political director of ABC News, responsible for political reporting and planning for the network's television, radio and Internet coverage. He also appeared regularly on ABC News television and radio as a correspondent and analyst, including for election night coverage, presidential inaugurations and State of the Union speeches. He began working at ABC News in 1988 and has covered five presidential elections.

Over his nearly twenty years as a journalist, Halperin has covered every major American political story, including working as a full-time reporter covering the Clinton presidential campaign in 1992 and the Clinton White House. He also covered major non-political stories, such as the O.J. Simpson criminal trial and the Oklahoma City bombing.

Halperin is the co-author of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and resides in New York City with Karen Avrich.

TIME is a global multimedia brand that includes TIME.com, TIME Style & Design, TIME for KIDS and Timeforkids.com. TIME's worldwide editions include TIME U.S., TIME Canada, TIME Europe, TIME Asia and TIME South Pacific. TIME magazine is the world's largest weekly newsmagazine with a domestic audience of more than 20 million and a global audience of more than 27 million.