After her December comedy-duo appearance with rapier-witted Democratic congressman Barney Frank at one of the highlights of the Washington media/society calendar – the annual Gridiron Dinner – and her even more astonishing joint appearance on late night TV with William Shattner (aka Capt. James T. Kirk), where they read from each other’s memoirs to the accompaniment of a jazz trio, Sarah Palin has just signed a multi-year contract to do a series of programmes for the Fox News cable TV network, the channel that lets unvarnished right-wing opinion masquerade as news. Palin now joins such abrasive, opinionated and just plain repulsive talking head fare as Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.

According to the usual informed sources, while Palin will not have a regularly scheduled program, she will host an occasional series that may mirror the show Iran-Contra-scandal-headliner Oliver North now hosts – a military valour and heroism series called War Stories.

This Fox TV deal will provide Palin with an ongoing income stream, even as it does not actually lock her into a day-to-day working grind. This could be the perfect way for the helicopter-riding, wolf- and moose-hunting, former Alaskan governor and losing Republican party vice presidential candidate to keep her face – and opinions – in front of her acolytes and supporters.

The Washington Post’s veteran politics watcher, Howard Kurtz, comments that Palin joins another potential 2012 presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, as well as Newt Gingrich, as Fox TV contributors and this TV “exposure can only help Palin if she decides to pursue a 2012 presidential bid”.

This also gives her a choice spot to criticise the Obama administration on the popular cable TV network. Lest you think this is her first venture into broadcasting, remember, before she became a political high-flyer, Palin was a part-time local TV station sportscaster.

By J. Brooks Spector

For more on Palin’s adventures, read the New York Times, Caucus at the New York Times, The Washington Post and the AP