taking him on and many advertisers bailing on his radio program, is rush in as much trouble as the drumbeat of coverage would suggest? are journal is rougher on conservatives who talk their way into trouble? the hot political movie "game change" had its premier last night portraiting sarah palin as stubborn, ignorant, and a bit of a head case. >> i was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand -- >> i have read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. >> what ones specifically? i'm curious. >> name one [ bleep ] paper. >> all of them. any of them that have been in front of me over all these years. i have -- >> oh, my god. what have we done? >> but is the hbo film an accurate portrayal of her campaign? we'll ask the director and the screen writer. mitt romney does it again taking the key super tuesday contest of ohio, but the media coverage practically made it sound like rick santorum was the big winner. why won't the press give romney a break? i'm howard kurtz, and this is "reliable sources." rush limbaugh's verbal assault on sandra fluke was no slip of the tongue. he was calling the georgetown law student a slut and prostitute for three days before issuing an apology. on his radio show limbaugh said it was the left that kept distorting the facts. >> i abbinged too much like the lefts that despise me. i descended to their level using names and exaggerations to describe sandra fluke. it's what we have come to know and expect of them, but it's way beneath me, and it's way beneath you. it was wrong, and that's why i have apologized because i succumbed. >> sandra fluke, meanwhile, continued her media tour winding up with the ladies of "the view." >> he has not called you. >> let me be clear that i think his statements that he made on the air about me have been personal enough so i would rather notes have a personal phone call from him. >> president obama was asked about the limbaugh furor, and he said such remarks have no place in pus public discourse. >> the reason i called ms. fluke is because i thought about malia and sasha, and one of the things i want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about. >> why has the media kwaergs continued to mushroom despite rush's apology? joining us now in los angeles, stephanie miller, host of the stephanie miller radio show which will soon be simulcast on current tv, and in seattle michael medved. you worked in the early 1990s as a substitute host for rush, but you haven't had any dealings with him for a long time. even for somebody who is in the controversy business as limbaugh is, wasn't this a pretty bad mistake? >> it was a terrible mistake, and he has acknowledged that. he has acknowledged it very directly. the real question here is the people that are trying to sponsor boycotts and trying to go after his sponsors. what is it exactly that they want? what they seem to want is for rush to go off the air and to damage the show and that's not going to work. i do know for a fact that there are other advertiser who's are just very willing to jump back in for any advertisers who bail, and it seems to me that it's inappropriate once the guy has apologized to continue this thing as basically a war on conservative talk radio, which i kind of personally don't welcome. >> stephanie miller, limbaugh says he is sorry. we just saw a clip of him saying i'm sorry for using words like slut and prostitute. why isn't that enough? >> i think if any woman talking is thinking, if you consider that a sincere apology, you don't know many women. first of all, he said he only apologizes for the two words. well, i guess he doesn't aplz for saying she's having so much sex she can barely walk. what else. that he would like to see videos of her having sex on-line. i mean, as you say, howard, it was a three-day sustained attack. it wasn't a slip of the tongue. >> but you -- >> you said once and then apologize for it. >> you mock people on your show. you mock people on your show. in fact, you have a certain phrase you use to describe mr. limbaugh. >> oh. drug-adled gas bag. that is based on the truth. i wasn't surprise thad he had problems figuring out how many birth control pills you have to take since he has had a little bit of trouble with the number of oxycontin pills you have to take. >> has ever talked about you? >> i don't think i want sex advice for -- >> have you ever apologized for that, stephanie? have you ever apologized for that? >> first of all, his testimony was based on the complete falsehood about sandra. >> of course not. of course not. michael, as you know shlgs advertiser boycotts hurt everybody in radio. you know? a lot of advertisers have pulled their advertising from everybody that could be considered controversial, which you are right, could be all of us. it hurts everybody. it hurts the radio business. you know, thanks for that as well, rush. >> it seems -- it seems to me that there are a lot of people who hear about this and are thinking, you know what, i'm really glad i don't listen to rush limbaugh because i don't like the style that he use uses. there are 15 million other people who do like listening to rush limbaugh. what i don't understand is why the left is so concerned about attacking those 15 million people rather than building your own shows and building shows that can offer an alternative. why not? >> michael, that's what i'm doing. i mean, you know, i have said very clearly a lot of his advertisers are my -- a lot of his advertisers, by the way, are my advertisers, so i have said on the air, don't boycott that advertiser. if you want to let -- this is what happened. they let their feelings be known to those advertisers. those advertisers made their decision. you know? that's -- that's the way capitalism works. >> let me jump in for one second. >> i think we have an agreement here. >> i don't want that. isn't there a difference between stephanie miller making fun of, mocking somebody like rush limbaugh, who is a public figure. he has a big mega phone, or people in politics, and rush picking on this law student, who is not a media figure and no one had ever heard of. isn't there a difference there? >> well, she became a media figure when she decided to testify before congress and before nancy pelosi. it seems to me -- this is one of the things that bothers me about the way this story has been covered. it's been treated as if, oh, rush is picking on this college student. she's not a college student. she's a 30-year-old law student, and she's a long-time activist on this issue, and she decided to testify before nancy pelosi. by the way, she's doing great with this. she's going to get a book contract. she's on "the view." she is suddenly a public figure. the president of the united states calls her. part of what's happening here -- and i know, stephanie, you'll acknowledge this -- the democrats would love to run against rush limbaugh in the presidential campaign. they don't want to run against mitt romney. >> if he were -- yeah. >> stephanie. >> well, if he weren't the face of the republican party. the republicans are terrified of, we wouldn't say that. mitt romney, the best he can manage is, oh, i would have used different words. are there better words to call a woman a slut and prostitute? maybe something more old-fashioned like trollop or something. that was a profile in courage. >> i want to get to an usual here. i want to circle back, and that is a question of whether there is a harsher standard in the man mainstream media. bill maher, people are focussing on him he has used the c-word and a sin nom nonvery close to the c-word, and he has called her a category five moron. he defended hemgs on his hbo show, and here's what he had to say. >> i am a potty mouth. that's different than a massagenist. if i offended women, i'm sorry. i have no problem saying i'm sorry. i don't know why women would want to align themselves with sarah palin. i don't know why an insult to her is an insult to all women, but if it is, i'm sorry. >> why have -- until now, until rush started this whole flap, stephanie miller, maher has gotten a pass on this kich crude language. >> i don't think that he has gotten a pass, but as he pointed out, he doesn't have sponsors. he is on hbo. dr. laura, you can yell the n-word 11 times on your radio show, howard, but you also have -- then you have the right to suffer the consequences. no one is taking away your first amendment rights. >> it dr. doctor laura is no longer -- >> advertisers don't want to be aligned with that. >> dr. laura is now on satellite radio, and the point is bill maher has gotten a pass. he gave $1 million, $1 million, of his own money to the president's super pac. if the president is so worried about people calling m his daughters names because they speak out in public, then why no sympathy for sarah palin? actually, if he turned down that million dollars and said, you know, in the same principle that i'm defending sandia fluke, i'm going to defend sarah palin, even though i disagree with her, the president could have gotten a lot of credit. he didn't do that. >> technically, he can't turn down any money because the super pac is supposed to be independent. all right. another liberal who spoke -- >> i'm sorry. she's not a public figure. you can't say that sandra fluke, like she enjoys being called a slut and prostitute for three days in a national arena. she was asked to testify. >> sarah palin doesn't enjoy it either. one of the things that i thought was very good in that game change movie on hbo, they show -- >> she's not a public figure. he distorted her testimony in the first place. she wasn't testifying about her personal sex life. she wasn't asking taxpayers to pay for her birth control. >> it was totally inappropriate. >> it was incorrect. >> we agree that rush was totally out of line and totally inappropriate with what he says. rush agrees with that. the point is that to treat sandra fluke as some -- >> oh, he does not. if anybody -- he continued to attack her in his apology. >> it is very difficult to interrupt two radio hosts, but i'm going to do it anyway because another liberal has spoken out, keith olbermann, on his current tv show, suspending his worst persons in the world segment, and he had this to say about this past comments he has made about michelle and two conservative commentators. let's roll it. >> i said ms. malkin was animated by "mindless, morally bankrupt, knee jerk hatred without which michelle maldin would just be a big mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it." so in neither case were my remarks -- nor were they things i did not say or could not have said about men. nevertheless, they have apparently distressed them, and i apologize to them both. >> we're running out of time. brief comment from each of where you, michael first on the way that liberals are treated when they make these kind of attacks. >> it's lewd kiss are. look, i don't think we should all spend all of our time apologizing for one another. i think stephanie is fairly clever in anointing sarah palin caribou barbie. i don't think you need to apologize to that. >> thank you. >> when i have disagreed with you, stephanie, i don't think i have said anything that i need to apologize for. >> you are an officer and a gentleman, michael. listen, rush has only called me a babe on the air, so i don't know if that's a gateway word to slut, but so far we're okay. >> on that rare moment of civility, we're going to have to end. thanks for joining us. when we come back, the debate over "game change". is it fair to sar wra palin as it depicts her run for vice president. is the film embellished? 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[ male announcer ] bayer advanced aspirin enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes extra strength relief to the sight of your pain. feel better? yeah...thanks for the tip! the filmmakers faced a stiff challenge, which everyone watched sarah palin unfold in real-time, but how accurate is "game change," the movie that premiered last night on hbo featuring julien moore as the governor and she studied hard for the part. >> there were times actually in the script where if i wasn't -- if i didn't quite understand something as seen, i would go back to try her own language, things she had actually said to put it in there. >> palin herself denigrated the movie before it was released. >> goodness gracious. you know, i am really not too concerned, though, about an hbo movie based on a false narrative when there are so many other things we need to be concerned about. >> i wanted to ask you -- >> was that narrative embellished or just revealing? take, for instance, palin's call of mccain strategist nicole wallace after the disastrous interview with a certain cbs anchor. >> why did you make me do katie couric? are you there? are you listening to me? >> yes, governor. i'm here. katie was a logical choice. she had been very fair to us this entire campaign. >> you call that interview fair? >> yes, governor, i do. >> i certainly don't. she was out to get me from the get go. >> no, she wasn't. the interview sucked because you didn't try. >> you have ruined me. you have ruined my reputation. i am ruined in alaska. >> hbo, by the way, is part of cnn's parent company. i spoke about the film with the director of "game change" and danny strong, the screen writer. they join me from new york. >> jay, danny, welcome. >> thanks for having us. >> thank you. >> jay, you have said that this film is a dramaization and can't always be perfectly detailed accurate. does that mean that some of it is a little embellished? >> no. it means that any time you squeeze 60-day story into a two-hour movie you're taking some kind of adjustment to make it fit, but you are never giving up on trying to make it completely true in its essence and you spend all your time double-checking, triple-checking all your sources. in this case, we had the great book, we thought, "game change" that -- where john and mark had done so much research that started it all off. >> you spent time with mark halprin and john, who did a lot of reporting for this book. when you talk about double and triple-checking and, danny, you can jump in here, who else were you -- who else were you interviewing as reporters? were you able to talk to senior people on the mccain campaign? >> yes, absolutely. i did 25 interviews with people on the mccain campaign pretty much covering every level of the campaign from, you know, low level aides to people at the highest levels in the campaign, and we were able to interview almost every character that appears on screen and several, you know, people within the campaign that don't appear on screen. >> does that include john mccain? >> no. senator mccain didn't respond to our request for an interview, and governor palin decolumbined our interest for an interview, and mark salter also did not respond to our question, but we pretty much got everyone else in the film. >> well, you know, when i watched this, i couldn't help to think back to when i was covering the 2008 campaign, and there is a scene early on where steve schmidt played by woody haralson is surrounded by a mob of reporters shouting questions at him. >> uh-huh. >> and, you know, i talked to steve schmidt at the republican convention, and he was very agitated about what he saw as a media putting sarah palin under siege, printing or repeating or asking about every rumor and smear, as he put it. >> she claimed as mayor she tried to ban backs. is that true? >> what about the allegations that trig is not really her child? >> did she attend the church where they speak in tongues? >> there was no mob scene of reporters, so that scene didn't actually take place. >> you know, that did take place for him during the campaign. there was different times that he was getting cornered by reporters during different phases of that convention. >> put that all together into one scene? >> exactly. that's part of the dramaization process. we're taking 60 days and we're narrowing it down into a two-hour period. now, during the convention was when all of the stories started to break about governor palin that he was having to refute, which was what you were talking about and what was happening in the movie. >> i remember is t vividly. you also have a conversation between sarah and todd palin while they're in bed, and he is kind of talking with her about the upcoming debate. since you didn't talk to the palin family, how do you know what was said? >> well, we had the vac of having her book "going rogue" which is a beat by bibeat account of her experiences during the campaign, and also from interviewing people within the campaign as well and would talk about their relationship and how they would interact with each other and in that particular scene, all of that dialogue is compromised -- is comprised of things that are actually true, so nothing said in that scene is fictional. you know, the anecdote about how she ran when she was governor of alaska is something she's discussed before, and those were all dialogue that is built upon true anecdotes. >> as you both know, former member of sarah palin's team, kind of had a preempt i have strike against "game change" and on a phone call of reporters -- i want to put this up on the screen -- meg stapleton said we all know palin and the more dramatization of palin sells even more. this is sick. the media has gone too far, she says. you accepted the false narrative of a couple of people who sought revenge and fabricated a story more than three years ago. your response? >> well, the most obvious response was that when she made that comment, she hadn't seen the film. we assumed she still has not seen it, so it was tough to take it seriously. i also want to respond, though, to the allegations that the film is based on a false narrative of a couple of people. that's totally inaccurate. the film is based on, you know, not only the book "game change," but interviews that i and jay conducted with 25 people, and, you know, the stories that we heard were corroborated by 10, 12, 5 15 people. it was never just one or two people's account of event. there were many, many people. some who are opposing views of governor palin who still told us the same stories. >> well, look, in fairness to palin, there are fabbings in any campaign. especially in losing campaigns. so you are pr