Olympic gold medal winner Shaun White was also on Jay Leno's program.
By Gil Kaufman
Adam Lambert performs on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on Tuesday
Photo: NBC
If this whole not running for office thing doesn't work out, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin really should consider taking a shot at hosting a cable chat show. The 2009 Republican vice presidential candidate sat on the couch on Tuesday night for Jay Leno's second night back on "The Tonight Show," on a stacked program that also featured a somewhat sedate visit from Adam Lambert and a chat with Olympic gold medal snowboarder Shaun White.
Dressed down for the occasion, the Fox News contributor wore skinny jeans and a black jacket on the show and happily chatted about her maverick nature, did a bit of fake stand-up and discussed how she's gone from being a media target to a member of the press. "I'm back there wanting to build some trust back in our media," said Palin, who earned a communications degree in college in hopes of becoming a sportscaster. She called the mainstream media "broken" and said she joined Fox because of its slogan about being "fair and balanced."
"I studied journalism," she told Leno. "It was all about the who, what, where, when and why. It was not so about the opinion interjected in hard news stories." Asked about the media reporting on her children, Palin took a dig at a "lame" recent episode of "The Family Guy" cartoon that not so subtly mocked Palin's son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. She complained that she wasn't able to really comment appropriately on the controversy.
"Jay, you've gone through this, too, especially in the last few months," Palin said, alluding to the recent "Tonight Show" turmoil. "It's like that old saying, a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can even get its pants on in the morning."
Palin also joked about the "poor boy's version of the teleprompter" she used at a recent Tea Party event, when she was caught on camera referring to notes scribbled on her palm.
"I took notes [when I was a kid], I take notes today, even on the palm of my hand, and just to get the left all whee-whee'd up and get their heads spinning, I'm going to promise to keep doing it!" said Palin, who noted that her dad, an elementary school teacher, used to come home at night with notes scribbled all over his hand. She also took a dig at Leno when he asked if she might consider doing her own talk show. "I hear once in a while this comes open," she joked, slapping his desk.
The segment ended with Palin doing a mock show-opening monologue while pretending to be a stand-up comedian and making jokes about cold weather in Alaska, botox, health care, moose meat and Congress' low approval rating — all of which she clearly read from a teleprompter.
Leno opened the show by joking about how he was glad NBC called him Monday night to tell him he should come back for another shot at the gig on Tuesday night. He continued with the high-power hour with White, who came out in black jeans and a black leather jacket covered with gold studs. The "Flying Tomato" handed Leno his gold medal as chants of "USA! USA!" broke out and Leno held up his new Rolling Stone cover featuring White's homage to Jimi Hendrix: a flaming snowboard.
White said he couldn't compare winning his second gold medal to the first time four years ago in Torino, Italy, when he was 19, but that he just tried to savor the moment a bit more this time. "I do [feel the pressure]," he said of the scrutiny this time. "I just remember being at the top and taking that pressure and using it as my will to do better."
The show ended with a performance from Adam Lambert, who sang the ballad "Sleepwalker" from his debut, For Your Entertainment. With his hair swept up in a towering punk pompadour and his eyelids covered in sparkly dark eye shadow that accented his bedazzled black jacket, black pants and chain-draped riding boots, Lambert gave one of his typically hair-raising, impassioned performances of the rock song about chronic insomnia.
While White came out to shake Lambert's hand at the end of the show, Palin, a vocal opponent of gay marriage, did not.
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