Hotline After Dark -- Queen Bee Or Wannabe?

"World News", "Evening News" and "Nightly News" each led with changes in breast cancer screenings.

Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) much-anticipated interview on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" aired 11/16.

Palin, on the McCain team on election night '08: "Not so much disappointed that I wasn't allowed to speak, but disappointed that the explanation that I was given why I wouldn't be able to speak ... that VP candidates never give a speech on an election night, and I knew that that was false because I've seen it happen over all the years. In fact, four years prior, of course, that had happened."

Palin, on a '12 run: "I'm concentrating on 2010 and making sure that we have issues tackled as Americans to make sure that we're on the right road. ... But 2012, Trig's heading into kindergarten in 2012. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to affecting positive change between now and then. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2012."

Oprah Winfrey: "Let's talk about the interview with Katie Couric."

Palin: "Must we?"

After the jump, more Palin highlights, reactions to the interview and her book, "Going Rogue."

(RACHELLE DOUILLARD-PROULX & ABBY LIVINGSTON)

Palin, on Couric asking her about what publications she reads: "By the time she asked me that question, even though it was kind of early on in the interview, I was already so annoyed and it was very unprofessional of me to wear that annoyance on my sleeve."

Palin, on whether she could think of any publications at that moment: "No, it was more like are you kidding me? Are you really asking me? To me it was in the context of do you read, how do you stay informed? You're way up there. It seems like she was discovering this nomadic tribe, a member of a tribe from some Neanderthal cave in Alaska asking me how do you stay in touch with the real world? That's how I took the question. So ... I rolled my eyes and was annoyed with the question."

More Palin: "We had just come off the most amazing rally working the rope line for I don't know how long, these energized awesome people. And I'm pumped up, just over the top pumped up with energy and so happy. And we're running backstage and ... and there's the perky one again with the microphone and the cameras rolling and I'm like, dang, give me just a couple of minutes to gather --"

Winfrey: "Perky one, you mean Katie?"

Palin: "With all due respect, yeah."

Winfrey: "Because you're pretty perky, too."

Palin, on NBC's Tina Fey: "When I met her in person, oh and the campaign was apprehensive about allowing me to meet her."

Palin, on the McCain campaign and "SNL": "They thought it was just going to be potentially atrocious. But I thought it would be fun. I wanted to participate in this because I wanted to kind of neutralize some of the parody."

Palin, on whether she wanted to go on "SNL": I wanted to, and so did John McCain."

Palin, on why the McCain ticket lost: "I think the reason that we lost, the economy tanked under a Republican administration. People were sincerely looking for change. Unfortunately, our ticket represented what was perceived as status quo, and so I don't think that I was to blame for losing the race any more than I could be credited with winning the race had I done a better job as the VP candidate" (11/16).

WILL SHE EVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN?

Pundits discussed Palin's interview and book on cable last p.m.

The Hill's Stoddard: "Obviously the book is designed to fire up her base and the shows are designed to sort of be a charm offensive. I don't think this is going to get her to Des Moines" ("Ed Show," MSNBC, 11/16).

GOP strategist Noelle Nikpour: "Every time that I would hear Sarah Palin, I would kind of cringe, and I was a big skeptic. But let me tell you what. After watching her interview with Oprah Winfrey, I have got to tell you that I felt like I really connected with
her and got to know her" ("Hannity," FNC, 11/16).

Ex-Bush speechwriter David Frum, on whether Palin could change public opinion of her in her favor if she decides to run in '12: "She could have changed it. Bill Clinton had a bad introduction to the American public in 1988 as well. ... And then he spent the next four years being governor, giving speeches, meeting with serious people, and winning what a magazine at the time called the I.Q. primary. Sarah Palin hasn't made that choice. She hasn't played the policy game and she hasn't countered her perceived deficiency in the way that Bill Clinton did" ("Situation Room," CNN, 11/16).

The Nation's Nichols: "The reality is that people are very interested in Sarah Palin, but interested doesn't translate to votes. And she's doing nothing right now that I see as building up a base of support. She's been very ill served by her publisher. If you read the book, the last thing you want to do if you're building yourself up as a candidate of the future is to spend hundreds of pages about whining about Katie Couric and Steve Schmidt and John McCain and everybody else. This is not a forward-looking moment. This is a backward-looking moment, and that's simply not what the Republican Party needs at this point" ("Ed Show," MSNBC, 11/16).

CNN's Foreman: "A lot of it is very much like the campaign, on both sides where politicians just shape things, leave out certain facts to create a very positive image of themselves" ("AC 360," 11/16).

MSNBC's Matthews, on Palin saying she wants to focus on '10: "It sounds like Dick Nixon. ... You run around the country and get a good record for Republican elections, you claim credit for any Republican who wins an upset race in a House race anywhere, and then you run for president. This is a set-up. Clearly" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 11/16).

Dem strategist Donna Brazile: "This is a defining moment for former Governor Palin to really show the American people that she is a woman of substance, that she can talk about difficult issues. I would be interested to hear the kind of speech that she will give before she starts autographing her book to see if she will talk about some of the pressing issues of the day, or, rather, will she continue to focus on those narrow interests that just mobilize the base of the Republican Party?" ("Situation Room," CNN, 11/16).