West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin today gave Sarah Palin both barrels over her US TV reality show, accusing the contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination of shooting an animal "for political gain".

Sorkin, writer of the recent Facebook movie The Social Network, also accused the Fox News contributor of making a "snuff film" after the latest episode of Sarah's Palin's Alaska featured the politician going hunting with her father and shooting a caribou.

He described Palin as "deranged", a "witless bully" and a "phony pioneer girl". He also said The Learning Channel, the US cable network, "should be ashamed of itself" for broadcasting her "truly awful reality show".

Sorkin was responding to a post on Palin's Facebook page in which the former governor of Alaska reacted to criticism of Sunday's episode by accusing her detractors of hypocrisy: "Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation."

"I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather ... I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical," Sorkin wrote in an incendiary comment piece posted on the Huffington Post website early today.

"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," he added.

"And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose [sic] 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 said he could not make a distinction between what Palin got paid to do in her show and "what Michael Vick went to prison for doing". Vick is an American football player convicted three years ago on dog-fighting charges.

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