West Wing creator calls Sarah Palin's reality show a 'snuff film'

Aaron Sorkin, a creator of the hit television series The West Wing and the screenwriter of the recent film The Social Network, tore into Sarah Palin in a scathing Huffington Post blog Wednesday, labeling Palin's new Learning Channel reality show a "snuff film."

The hit writer also tore into Palin personally, dubbing her a "phony pioneer girl" and calling her "deranged." He also said, "The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself."

Palin shot a caribou to death in an episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" this week, after missing it five times with a telescopic rifle, and is shown skinning the animal and freezing it. After shooting the animal, Palin appears "proudly smiling for the camera, crouching beside her kill," according to an entertainment website.

Sorkin's remarks came in response to a Palin Facebook posting, in which she said, "Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation." The posting appeared to pre-empt expected criticism of the show, as it was posted before the show aired.

Sorkin's response? "You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now."

"Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt," Sorkin wrote. "But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart."

"I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical," Sorkin added. "I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face."

His posting then continued apace, accusing Palin of killing the animal for "political gain."

"You didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money," Sorkin wrote. "That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right."

Sorkin even acknowledged a previous cocaine addition in anticipation of his own character assassination by Palin supporters.

"Let me be the first to say that I abused cocaine and was arrested for it in April 2001," he wrote. "I want to be the first to say it so that when Palin's Army of Arrogant Assholes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second."

He concluded: "I eat meat, there are leather chairs in my office, Sarah Palin is deranged and The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself."