Nicolle Wallace: 'Game Change' Was 'True Enough To Make Me Squirm'

Sarah Palin has dismissed "Game Change" as unimportant, but a top aide says the HBO film about her 2008 vice-presidential bid was "true enough to make me squirm."

Nicolle Wallace, a senior advisor to the campaign, was assigned to work with Palin after she was chosen as John McCain's running mate and later wrote a novel with a mentally-ill character inspired by the former Alaska governor.

"This is a movie about the vast gray area where 99 percent of our politics actually takes place,” Wallace told "This Week" on Sunday. “You’re just feeling your way though a gray area and doing your best and that campaign was one of those instances for me."

Wallace has previously butted heads with Palin and once described her as bitter, cynical and aggressive.

"I believe that if she were on the cusp of becoming the nominee for the Republican party a whole lot of people... would talk about some of her more troubling deficiencies," she told MSNBC in 2010. "Her incredible cynicism, her bitterness, her aggressive attempts to claw anyone that points out an area for her to work on, I think these things will continue to reveal herself and the people that love her will continue to love her, but the people who are not so sure about her will, I think, formulate harder opinions and more clarity about her."

John McCain also spoke out about the movie on Sunday.

"Of course I'm not going to watch it," he said Fox News Sunday. "Why there continues to be such an assault on a fine and decent person, Sarah Palin ... They continue to disparage and attack her person. I admire and respect her, I'm proud of our campaign and I'm humbled by the fact that I was able to give her [the Republican vice-presidential nomination]."

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Comments

[toniw61]

10:54 PM on 10/22/2012

Nicolle Wallace, is one of the people who helped steal the second term for Bush. She is not trust worthy!!!!!

[PASTOR THERESE]

04:41 PM on 05/01/2012

I SAW THE MOVIE, IT WAS INTERESTING. I THINK MCCAIN'S PEOPLE SHOULD OF ASKED THE HARD QUESTION'S ABOUT FROEIGN POLICIES AND SUCH JUST TO MAKE SURE SHE KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON IN THE WORLD. I VOTED FOR MCCAIN BECAUSE I THOUGHT HE WAS THE LESSER OF THE TWO EVIL'S, BUT I VOTED BLINDLY, I DIDN'T DO MY HOMEWORK TO FIND OUT ABOUT HIS RUNNING MATE. I DIDN'T LIKE OBAMA THEN AND I DON'T LIKE HIM NOW. WOULD I DO THE VOTE AGAIN? DEFFINATELY, BECAUSE SHE CAN BE CONTROLED AND SHE CAN LEARN, OBAMA IS TO NARCISISTIC, RUDE, OBNOCTIOUS, AND JUST ANNOYING.

[Katherine Magdangal]

02:01 PM on 03/27/2012

OK....I just finished reading "Game Change"

First off....they were right, the movie was based on only a tiny portion of the book....so small I
have to wonder why they did it at all.....I was well into two thirds of it before Palin's name was
even mentioned, although there was mention of the 'McCainiacs' (what the authors called
McCains campaign team) having had met and gotten to know her on several occasions prior
to consideration for VP

It was a good read, for entertainment value....there were a few discrepancies on what was in
the movie about Palin but only in the 'exchange' of characters according to the book.......

but I have to say:

It was very biased -- towards Obama....and not just because he won the election, A LOT that
transpired was LEFT OUT......like McCain's citizenship eligibility coming under examination --
NO mention at all.....but I guess they had to leave that out....otherwise they would have had to
write about Obama's eligibility being questioned as well....not to mention how Pelosi got it
swept under the rug and out of the press.

Mad Angel on FB

[TheBluesGuy]

04:06 PM on 05/14/2013

"McCain's citizenship eligibility coming under examination --
NO mention at all.....but I guess they had to leave that out....otherwise they would have had to
write about Obama's eligibility being questioned as well"
__________

Or, made movie goers sit through an extra half hour that added nothing to the narrative.

[Founders1791]

03:19 AM on 03/20/2012

----------------------------------------------------------
THE ANATOMY OF LOSERS WITH NO WHERE TO GO IN THEIR CAREERS
----------------------------------------------------------

You're only as good as your last performance. With no one in politics in need of the services for failed political operatives, they have chosen the only dishonorable thing left for them to do:

(( Steve Schmidt - 2008 Failed Campaign Manager for John McCain ))

...SOLD OUT to the liberal hate machine for cash....

2012, Steve advises anti-Palin movie "Game change" distributed by HBO [Bill Maher], produced by ardent Obama supporter [Tom Hanks], stared in by ardent Obama supporters Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, and Woody Harrelson

Paid pawn in revisionist history of liberal fictional account of the failed GOP election campaign he orchestrated. Movie is panned as untrue political propaganda
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni24091785/

http://www.cleveland.com/tv/index.ssf/2012/03/weak_hbo_film_game_change_puts/2733/comments-4.html

Sound familiar?

(( Scott McLellan - 2003 Disgruntled Bush white House Press Secretary ))

...SOLD OUT to the liberal hate machine for cash....

2008, Scott wrote anti-Bush book "What Happend" for publisher [PUblicAffairs Book],owned by Liberal Peter Osnos, and its board of Clinton and Carter officials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PublicAffairs

For added affect, and greater consideration, of his new employers he voted for Obama in 2008 Election.

[ghevener]

06:40 PM on 03/18/2012

If Palin doesn't like how she is treated she needs to disappear. I don't know of any other VP candidate that has ever had a movie made about them. This should say something. Could it mean that no other candidate was quite as controversial? We have enough controversy in Washington now so why would we want more. I doubt if Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt would say it were true if it weren't since each of them were advisors in the Republican campaign and are not on the left. Please go away Sarah!

[MelissaFl]

10:45 PM on 03/14/2012

I watched this movie and read the book afterwards I have to say it really changed my opinion of her. I went from wishing she would disappear to having alot of sympathy for her while still wanting her to go back to Alaska. She was obviously thrown in the deep end of politics while dealing with turmoil in her personal life that honestly would make most of us women and mothers crumble and not want to get outta bed. A son in Iraq a pregnant teenager a special needs baby Is it any wonder that the woman wasn't able to keep it together in the National spotlight? She never should have been tapped for the VP spot that folly is on Mcain and his advisers. I am impressed that she kept it together as well as she did and I'm as liberal as can be and disagree with pretty much all of her politics but as a woman and mother I am impressed with her

[Lisa1129]

06:29 PM on 03/14/2012

This woman can make anyone squirm, even a cockroach.

[DrJimmy]

04:22 PM on 03/14/2012

She's a quitter!

[Katherine Magdangal]

02:11 PM on 03/27/2012

Something happened to Palin during the course of the campaign...... she went "Rogue"....she was the reason the campaign got revitalized and the donations started rolling in - and she knew it....instead of bothering trying to repair her image in Alaska - she went for the money... did she become a diva, um yes....she made more $$ in speeches and appearances and book deals and that (flopped) reality show, than she could ever have made as governor....and when you have A LOT of money...it's easy not to care what anyone thinks of you...

Mad Angel on FB

PS....I think the movie was made to 'knock her down a peg'

[kiran1207]

04:21 PM on 03/14/2012

ha ha Sarah is such an idiot but her neocon supporters are worse.

[austinlad]

04:00 PM on 03/14/2012

Knowing the film business as I do, I know many details were altered, even fictionalized, to enhance dramatic effect. Nonetheless, I came away feeling I had gotten a pretty fair sense of who this woman Palin really is.

[pworley]

02:42 PM on 03/14/2012

When Sarah's speeches were not written for her, you got to see exactly how her mind operated.

[Katherine Magdangal]

02:14 PM on 03/27/2012

She did better when she 'flew-by-the-seat-of-her-pants' so to speak....as evidenced by the teleprompter messing up at her first big speech...where she had to adlib

Mad Angel on FB

[AuntLoonie]

01:07 PM on 03/14/2012

I love how the media always picks photos of her with her mouth wide open like she's going to insert...her foot.

[dr45309a]

11:29 AM on 03/14/2012

I would like to know why it is that the left can call and say all the vulgar and vile things that they say about conservative women but when a conservative something the whole world comes to an end?

[TheBluesGuy]

04:10 PM on 05/14/2013

"I would like to know why it is that the left can call and say all the vulgar and vile things that they say about conservative women but when a conservative something the whole world comes to an end?"
__________

It's all due to content, dr45309a. When a Liberal points out a flaw in Conservative behavior, he's referring to an easily observed and conformable action. When Conservatives criticize, they complain about motives, most of which have been made up on the spot.

[TheGuide]

09:19 AM on 03/14/2012

Saw it again, this time with my family. Their reaction during and after? Priceless!

[guyview]

07:44 AM on 03/14/2012

The mentally ill character from the book must be based on palin, right? I always wondered how young palin was when she started to do the dirty deed. As young as bristol? It's neither here nor there is she had sex young but she should not be behaving as if she never rode Glen Rice among others.