Well if this isn't the most perfect casting job in history.
Kathy Griffin, who has sparred with the Palin family incessantly over the last two years, is now set to play a character inspired by their matriarch on "Glee". Really. TVLine reports that the comedienne -- who most recently called Bristol Palin "the white Precious" in a standup routine during a USO trip -- is set to play a Tea Party candidate mom and regional finals judge on the musical comedy.
While TVLine says that a source tells them that the character, to be named Tammy Jean, "really isn't anything like Palin," the casting breakdown the show put out may indicate otherwise. According to Movie Line, the show was in search of a "recent Tea Party candidate and home schooler -- a Sarah Palin type."
Either way, the casting is a bit of a culmination of a close relationship Griffin has had with the "Glee" cast. In October, she appeared with cast members at an LGBTQ advocacy event at Occidental College in California, and shared an on-stage kiss with Chris Colfer. And, she's gotten chummy with the show's teacher and adult figure, Matthew Morrison.
As for Griffin and the Palins, there's an even longer history there. Griffin has flirted and even taken as a date Bristol Palin's ex-fiance, Levi Johnston, and has promised to offend another Palin in 2011.
So will she take them on -- or even play them sympathetically? Last June, "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy hinted that perhaps his show was ready to be nicer to the Tea Party.
"We've taken a couple jabs at the right wing this year," he said to TV Guide. "So what I want to do with this character is have someone who Christian kids and parents can recognize and say, 'Oh, look -- I'm represented there, too!' If we're trying to form a world of inclusiveness, we've got to include that point of view as well."
No matter what, the episode should be very, very interesting.