Sarah Palin, The Hit of the Party in Hollywood

Sarah Palin generated such a huge interview scrum that it threatened to leave the actual NBC stars ignored.

~ TV Critic Alan Sepinwall via Twitter

By Gary P Jackson

Sarah Palin was the hit of NBC’s annual Summer party at the Television Critics Association Summer press tour . NBC was holding it’s annual event to showcase it’s new season.

Todd, of course, is a contestant on Stars Earn Stripes a program that teams a star up with a member of the military, and the two take part in training exercises similar to what one does in the military. The teams are all competing for charities that benefit military and police.

As always, Sarah is the star in whatever room she’s in, and when among liberals, even they can’t wait to be around her.

As expected, this got a lot of media attention. We’ll start with the New York Times:

Sarah Palin Turns Heads at NBC Party in Beverly Hills

LOS ANGELES — Sarah Palin was given rock star treatment here Tuesday night at a party thrown by NBC for its roster of fall television shows.

She looked like a star, too, in designer sunglasses, green hip-hugging dress, and platform gladiator shoes. Surrounded by packs of reporters around the pool of the Beverly Hilton hotel, which features vintage photos of stars from Hollywood’s golden age along all its halls, she seemed to fit right in.

“Oh, not really,” Mrs. Palin protested. “Everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time.”

Mrs. Palin, the former Alaska governor and the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, was on the scene because her husband, Todd, does star in an upcoming NBC series, a reality competition show called “Stars Earn Stripes,” which pairs celebrities with special operatives from the Navy SEALs and other elite first-responder units, in contests designed to emulate missions. The winners get cash prizes for charities.

Mr. Palin said, “I did things I never thought I would do.” These included jumping out of helicopters, “shooting grenade launchers, shooting a 50-caliber machine gun from World War I.”

When told that a fellow contestant, the former N.F.L. player-turned-actor Terry Crews, reported that Mr. Palin had kicked butt in the competition, Mrs. Palin’s ears perked up.

“Todd’s hard-core,” she said. “He’s a commercial fisherman. He’s a world champion snow-machine racer. He’s got all this physicality.”

Mrs. Palin was displaying some physicality of her own, enough to draw several compliments on her appearance from female reporters, which inspired a broad smile and “Oh, thank you” that emphasized the broad “a” of her Northwest accent. (She did disavow ownership of the shoes, saying she was wearing them “on consignment.”)

The Palin family has become second perhaps only to the Kardashians in terms of reality-show performances on TV. Mrs. Palin herself had a show on TLC, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Her daughter Bristol made a splash on “Dancing With the Stars” and currently has a show on Lifetime that also features her sister Willow and son Tripp. Now Mr. Palin has entered the arena.

Mrs. Palin, who steered clear of all political discussion at the event, defended Bristol’s new show, saying, “It’s clever and absolutely real.” She also said it paints a realistic picture of “what single motherhood really is.”

She praised Todd Palin’s new show for its portrayal of military activities and tied it to her son Track’s service in Afghanistan. “Todd is very cool, calm and collected all the time,” Mrs. Palin said. “I’m just very happy he has the opportunity to participate in an appropriate, worthy cause.”

But asked if she could see herself participating in a second year of “Stars Earn Stripes,” Mrs. Palin said, “I would have to do a lot of push-ups.” When asked if it sounded tougher than politics, she added, in her only brush with a political comment, “Politics are pretty brutal too.”

NBC was clearly surprised by Mrs. Palin’s accessibility at its event. One executive said while she had mentioned she might attend the news conference about her husband’s show, the network did not expect her to join the party for such an extended period of time.

But she was clearly having fun. “I would love these folks to all come up to Alaska to go fishing with us,” Mrs. Palin said. “We could barbecue some salmon on the grill for everybody. That’s how you really get to know people.”

Bruce Miller at the Souix City Journal ran the headline: Sarah Palin trumps stars at NBC party:

How do you gauge “star” power?” By the crowd a celebrity draws.

At a party to promote NBC’s fall shows, Crystal, the Weeping Capucin monkey who stars on “Animal Practice” and is a Hollywood veteran (“Hangover II,” anyone?), clearly had the focus Tuesday night.

And then? Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin showed up and, clearly, the mob drifted.

Wearing a form-fitting brown dress, high, high, high heels and sunglasses, she attracted as much attention as she did the last election cycle. Never mind that she isn’t on NBC.

Palin was at the Beverly Hilton hotel as a guest of husband Todd, who’s one of the contestants on “Stars Earn Stripes,” a new reality show that features “stars” in boot camp-like situations. Palin admitted she wouldn’t have been good on that show — or “Dancing with the Stars” (“I can’t dance,” she said) — but she enjoyed the attention that came her way.

Todd Palin, meanwhile, pulled back, giving his wife the focus. And through it all, the two looked very star-like. “You look very glamorous,” I told her. “In my Oakley sunglasses?” she said, surprised.

She was very personable — talking about daughter Bristol and the great job soldiers did. And she steered clear of any heavy political talk.

While she didn’t look like a candidate running for office, she did act like one. She took time for just about everyone and didn’t miss a photo op with Gen. Wesley Clark, who’s host of “Stars Earn Stripes.”

Early exit? Not in the least. Palin stayed at the party long past names like Matthew Perry and kept the sunglasses on well past their usefulness.

Of course, the bunch at TV Newser couldn’t resit the snark, claiming Sarah “crashed” the party in their headline. Boring. We did get this from them though:

“God has absolutely blessed us with wonderful opportunities,” Sarah Palin told Jam!’s Bill Harris. “One of our mottoes is to live life vibrantly and that is what we’re doing in participating in different forms and formats that have been presented us.”

[ …. ]

A source at NBC Entertainment tells TVNewser that executives there were just as surprised as attendees that Mrs. Palin stopped by. She was expected to appear at the press conference for “Stars Earn Stripes,” but indicated that she was unlikely to go to the party. She ended up staying for hours, talking to anyone who wanted to say hello.

Invited but unlikely to go is a tad different than “crashing the party,” eh TV Newser? Of course, they ran that headline for the liberals. They have limited comprehension skills and won’t make it past the headline anyhow. So the narrative is created that Sarah “crashed the party” rather that surprised everyone by actually showing up.

Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy has all the interesting tweets and more photos here.

Palin4America has more as well.

Andrew Breitbart consistently said Conservatives need to infiltrate pop culture in order to bring about change. In an interview in May of 2011 with Human Events Jason Mattera, Breitbard said Sarah Palin “gets it”. Indeed she does. No other Conservative has been able to seamlessly move between the worlds of hard core politics and pop culture the was Sarah does. She knows who she is and what she believes in. She’s comfortable in her own skin. In other words, she’s real.

While liberals hate, and the Republican Establishment™ turn their noses up, Sarah Palin continues to win hearts and minds. Team Romney should take note. This is how it’s done!