Yes, contain your mirth at the thought of a nationally famous politician, who by the way was on a presidential ticket last year, putting out a book about the experience. This makes twice now that Matthews has all but accused Palin of being illiterate, underscored here by how aghast he is at the thought that she’d work with a “collaborator.” Is Mr. Hardball really so naive as to think that the Clintons, say, write all their own material? Not only are the names of some of their ghostwriters publicly known, but Hillary has a reputation among them for being notoriously hard to work with, going so far as to deny credit to a “co-author” on “It Takes a Village.” Matthews surely can’t be so dim as not to know that, which means his astonishment here is little more than theatrics meant to remind Hardball’s three viewers that Palin, supposedly, is a moron.

First clip comes from Politico, second from MSNBC’s site. Neither one of them, unfortunately, captures the part where Matthews called the book an “embarrassment.” Good lord.