“My ambition, if you will, my desire is to help our country in whatever role that may be, and I cannot predict what that will be, what doors will be open in the year 2012,” she told Barbara Walters.

When asked whether she’d play a major role, the former Republican vice presidential candidate replied that “if people will have me, I will.”

Palin is making the rounds to promote her new book, “Going Rogue,” which came out Tuesday. On Monday, she appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Palin said she’s gotten plenty of offers during the past few months, including to open up her family for a reality show, that she has rejected. She also said she wasn’t sure whether a talk show would be best for her family.

“I’d probably rather write than talk,” she told Walters.

The former Alaska governor said she’d rate President Barack Obama’s performance a 4 out of 10. She criticized the president for his handling of the economy and for “dithering” on national security questions.

“There are a lot of decisions being made that I – and probably the majority of Americans – are not impressed with right now,” she said on ABC. She said Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize was “premature.”

Palin also discussed David Letterman, whom she criticized for a sexually suggestive jokes made at the expense of her teenage daughter in June. Letterman eventually apologized to Palin.

Palin told Walters she has ruled out an appearance on Letterman’s late night TV show. “I don’t think that I’d want to boost his ratings,” she said. “I do want him to sell my book, though I hope he keeps it up.”

The title of Palin’s book refers to a phrase John McCain’s campaign used to describe his vice presidential running mate going off message. In the book, she criticizes the people who ran McCain’s campaign and says she wished she had been allowed to speak more freely. But she told Walters the outcome probably would not have been different if she had.

“The economy tanked,” she said. “(The) electorate was ready, sincerely, for change.”

On the controversy about the $150,000 spent on her wardrobe by the campaign, Palin said there was a double standard: No one ever questions male candidates where their shoes or suits came from, she said. In the end, she added: “The clothes all went back. They were never my clothes.”

Despite the internal squabbling and ultimate loss, Palin said she would go through the experience again. “(I) would do it again in a heartbeat,” she told Walters.

And though she backed the first federal bailout, Palin says she would not support a second. “That did not put our economy back on the right track. So we learn from our mistakes.”

During her interview with Winfrey, which was taped last week, Palin said that it’s heartbreaking to see the road that Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, has taken and that the soon-to-be Playgirl model hasn’t seen his baby in a while.

The new memoir doesn’t mention Johnston, who has sparred repeatedly with his former mother-in-law-to-be. When Winfrey asked about Johnston, Palin said she didn’t think “a national television show is the place to discuss some of the things he’s doing and saying.”

But Palin went on to say she finds it “a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he is on right now” and that “it’s not a healthy place to be.”

Palin also said Johnston remains a member of the family and that they can work out any troubles. She said she prays for him and that he has an “open invitation” to Thanksgiving dinner.

Winfrey began the interview by asking Palin if she felt snubbed at not getting an invitation to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last year. Winfrey said she didn’t have any candidates on her Chicago-based show during the campaign because of her support for President Barack Obama.

Palin said she didn’t feel snubbed and told Winfrey, “No offense to you, but it wasn’t the center of my universe.”

You gotta hand it to the Obama refuseniks. They are a sturdy bunch and will march to heck and back to prove the president elect isn’t eligible to live in the White House. Oh, I’m sure they despise the guy’s politics, but that isn’t why he’s not qualified. According to them Obama is not a citizen of the country.

Today the Supreme Court will consider whether or not to take up a lawsuit about Obama’s citizen status. Seems  there is a subterranean world of folk convinced Obama is the main character in “No Way Out.”

This being the internets some guy, or gal, convinced  he/she has the truth all of us are too dumb to see, will  leave comments  here mired in passion, truth, and “geometric logic.”  With a bucketful of  hot red crazee.

Don’t take my word about the nuttiness. Here is a gentleman, no wimpy liberal he, who wonders why  the conspiracy theorists won’t admit defeat on this one.

A chapter has closed. After two years of chicken dinners, shaking countless hands, traveling to and speaking in small towns and large urban areas, Barack Hussein Obama is president elect of the United States. For some that is a nightmare, others the culmination of what Langston Hughes called ” a dream deferred.”

Actually it’s neither dream nor nightmare. To dismiss the history making election is foolhardy, but if you have been paying attention to the Obama campaign race is not the game the future 44th president plays. He knows the history of course, probably better than most, but being first only goes so far. If Jackie Robinson wasn’t a great ball player, his place in history would be negligible at best. If W.E.B. DuBois wasn’t a scholar of the finest order, no one would remember him as the first black man to get a doctorate from Harvard.

So when the novelty fades, Obama needs to govern and that is where we will judge him.

Ahh but whenever there is a celebration after an election, it also means some are disappointed. It was a difficult night for same-sex marriage advocates. Florida and Arizona voters supported same sex marriage bans. Out in California,  Proposition 8 numbers are  still coming in and it’s going to be tight.

Sure this is  a loss and I can imagine the comments we are going to get today. With that said, all freedom struggles face obstacles. Being angry today is okay, but the larger question is once the anger subsides what are our next steps for marriage equality. That’s what I want to hear and you should only listen to folk who are talking the future.

But, and this is where he is a copy of Ronald Reagan, he articulates  a belief in the country’s possibilities. That is what the best leaders do. Give you the problem, but then makes you believe it can be fixed.

Second he seems unable to pay attention to this one factor of Obama’s campaign: he’s not running a racial campaign. Obama is not running as a “black candidate” and while there are those few folk on the right (Sean Hannity) who yell that Obama has used the “race card,” Obama’s campaign has asked us to look beyond our racial differences.

It had to because to be run as the “black candidate” means you only get 13 percent of the vote. Wish someone would tell Matthews that!

Not much to say really until we get some results. No matter what happens though, it’s important to remember this our day as citizens. Take yourselves to the polls and vote your conscience. That’s all that matters.