(CNN) – In a little-noticed speech to a GOP dinner in Alaska last week, Palin riffed for nearly an hour on a variety of topics — including her relationship with former McCain staffers, the Bush administration's anti-terror efforts, and actress Ashley Judd.
But the Alaska governor returned multiple times to the "unprecedented level of media slant" that she witnessed during her two-months on the Republican ticket with John McCain.
Her speech, delivered last Friday to the Anchorage Lincoln Day Dinner, was recorded by the Alaska Republican Party and posted online Tuesday.
Reflecting on the campaign, Palin said there were "a variety of reasons" Republicans lost in November, namely the faltering economy, but she seemed to place most of the blame on the press.
"Some in the media actually participated in not so much the 'who-what-where-when-why' objective reporting on candidates and positions, those five W's that I learned when I had a journalism degree so many years ago in college, when the world of journalism was quite different than it is today," she said.
"No, things have changed," she continued. "But complaining? Or whining? Absolutely not. But I am going to call it like I see it. It doesn't do any good to whine about any of this. But I can call it like I see it. Sometimes it gets me in a lot of trouble when I speak candidly, and I speak from the heart and I do such a thing. But I am going to."
"And there was that media slant this go round," she said. "And unless things change, the GOP had really better can stand together, 'cause we got that on the battlefield also. I call it like I see it and like I lived it on the campaign trail. Not complaining, but dealing with reality."
"Those are the cards that are dealt us," she said, "and we had better learn to play that hand and do things right and do things better."
Later in the speech, she told a story about praying for strength before last October's Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden in St. Louis.
"So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, they're a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." As the crowd laughed, Palin grinned and said she meant no disrespect to the McCain campaign. She said she ultimately prayed with her daughter Piper.
The governor also took a shot at an environmental group fronted by actress Ashley Judd — the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund — that has mounted a campaign against the governor to halt the practice aerial wolf hunting in Alaska. Palin called on her fellow Republicans to "stand up to those goofy Defenders of Wildlife celebrity starlets who don't even know about Alaska."
She mocked the Obama administration's elimination of the term "enemy combatant" and reminded the crowd that "we're at war." She lauded former President Bush for his efforts to prevent another terrorist attack after September 11, standing up for the 43rd president even though "the political and media elite ridiculed and mocked him."
"It's no small accomplishment that no terrorist attack has occurred since 9/11," Palin said.
Adding her voice to the debate over the future of the GOP, Palin said the Republican Party would be happy to welcome Democrats and independents who might grow frustrated with Democratic overreach, but she rejected the suggestion that the party should become more moderate. Instead, she argued, Republicans need to better communicate their ideas.
"Sometimes, the middle of the fence is really the most uncomfortable place to be," she said. "How about we just keep it simple? To grow, we've got to be who we are."
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