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 "Who is America?", due to launch on Sunday on cable channel
Showtime, has been shrouded in secrecy apart from a trailer
showing former U.S. defense secretary Dick Cheney signing a
large bottle described as a water-boarding kit.
The seven-episode series marks Baron Cohen's first television
project in a decade after he launched his comedy career as
subversive white English rapper Ali G., whose interviews
included Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich. His 2006 faux
documentary film "Borat" ridiculed Kazakhstan and Middle
Americans.
Palin, the 2008 U.S. vice-presidential candidate, says she was
tricked into an interview, ostensibly about American veterans,
by a person dressed as a disabled U.S. serviceman.
Former U.S. Republican congressman Joe Walsh, now a conservative
talk radio host, said he was persuaded to do an interview on
Israel. Walsh also called for a boycott of Showtime, a unit of
CBS.
Showtime had no comment on Wednesday on the accounts by Palin
and Walsh and has declined to give details of the series, or who
will be appearing.
"I join a long list of American public personalities who have
fallen victim to the evil, exploitive, sick "humor" of the
British "comedian" Sacha Baron Cohen," Palin wrote in a Facebook
post on Tuesday.
Palin said a man she believed to be Cohen "heavily disguised
himself as a disabled U.S. Veteran, fake wheelchair and all ...
I sat through a long "interview" full of Hollywoodism's
disrespect and sarcasm - but finally had enough and literally,
physically removed my mic and walked out."
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Walsh tweeted on Wednesday that he believed Palin's account because
"i too was duped ... it was much of the same she experienced."
Walsh, who has strong pro-Israel views, said he was invited to a
dinner for defenders of Israel and asked to film an interview.
"I was rushed to the studio, production was a mess, I sat down and
we started talking pro-Israel stuff, Israeli defense, and then out
of left field the interviewer starts talking about how children
should defend themselves against terrorist attacks," Walsh tweeted.
He said he "stopped and questioned their direction" and then
producers "rushed me out of the studio as an apparent fight broke
out. Strangest interview of my life."
Walsh included the hashtag #boycottShowtime on his series of tweets,
while Palin asked Baron Cohen and Showtime to donate the proceeds
from the show "to a charitable group that actually respects and
supports American Vets."
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Rosalba
O'Brien)
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