“She’s a joke. I mean, I just can’t take her seriously....The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it’ll never happen. Republican primary voters just are not going to elect a talk show host.”

“In a smear that sounds even worse in retrospect, Sarah Palin goes rogue and stirs up prejudice by accusing Barack Obama of ‘palling around with terrorists.’”

— From Newsweek’s list of “The Biggest Losers” of 2008, those “who set the high-water mark for low behavior in 2008,” December 29-January 5 issue.

Sarah Palin: Ill-informed, inarticulate shopaholic has ego bigger than Alaska — and she’s still the darling of the GOP.”

CNN’s Jack Cafferty: “Here’s the question: ‘Would you rather listen to a speech by Sarah Palin or a speech by Newt Gingrich?’ Go to CNN — or would you rather just stick needles in your eyes? [Over loud laughter off-camera from a man other than Cafferty, presumably Blitzer] Go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile and you can post a comment on my blog. I forgot about the third option.”

Anchor Wolf Blitzer: “What do you think, Jack? You want to listen to Palin or Gingrich deliver a speech?”

Cafferty: “I’m not interested in listening to either one of them.”

Ex-MSNBC anchor Dan Abrams: “Sarah Palin, to me, is like the representative of everything that’s gone wrong [for the Republican Party] lately.”

Comedian Chuck Nice: “Yeah, she’s a maverick!...And I’m going to say this, and please don’t take it the way it sounds. But, Sarah Palin to the GOP, this is what I’ve got to say: She is very much like herpes — she’s not going away. Okay? That’s it.”

“The simple fact of the matter is if Sarah Palin thinks that she’s had it tougher than anybody else, she’s been more harshly criticized, I have two words for her: Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was savaged for eight years....The one thing that came across, I thought, was not only that she was smarting from all this criticism, but she came across as petty and vindictive — Richard Nixon without the policy knowledge or the experience.”

“Look, she may spend the next year campaigning for Republicans all across the country. She’s probably going to be the person that can attract the largest crowds, some of it is car-wreck watchers — you know, they just are coming, kind of curiosity-seekers.”

“She’s been an astronaut and a rock star. Pop icons Beyonce and Shakira. She’s won American Idol too. She’s even run for President twice. [Over footage of Sarah Palin] Some would argue she also ran for Vice President in 2008.”