Palin on Leno

Sarah Palin was playful last night on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," as you can see from the clip above, where she dabbles in stand-up comedy and goofs on the Writing On Hand Incident (which she later told Jay was "the poor boy's version of the TelePrompter"). These are the kinds of short, gimmicky TV segments now specifically designed to go viral.

Palin also had the opportunity to address a few issues, without getting much of a challenge from Jay. As we've seen before, she went after the "broken" media. She said she wants to rebuild trust in the media, believes working for Fox News is the place to do that, feels that a line has been crossed in covering her family. She also talked about the Tea Party stuff. "It is an uprising of the people -- an uprising of the people to say, 'Hey, Government, we are not to be working for you. You are to be working for us. Let's get government back on our side.' So heaven forbid the Tea Party movement think that they need an individual, a politician to put their faith in, to be their leader."

Shows like "The Tonight Show" are great opportunities for politicians to politic without having to answer all kinds of tricky, mean questions. And guests like Sarah Palin are great opportunities for TV hosts to grab audiences -- and, I should add, to grab the attention of the mainstream media. Jay got a nice push in the Fox News demo with Palin (I could almost feel Jay jumping for joy when Palin told him her father loves him), though he did make a half-plug for MSNBC in their conversation about Fox."I watch both," he said. "I like to get all sides of all stories."

What did you think?