Here we go again — another politically oriented TV movie is igniting controversy.

This time it’s HBO’s “Game Change,” which focuses on Sarah Palin’s impact as the GOP vice presidential candidate in the 2008 election.

The movie, which airs March 10, has been blasted by Palin backers — who, yesterday, released a 2 1/2-minute video claiming it “presents history that never happened” while featuring laudatory Palin clips and sound bites from the ’08 campaign.

On the other side is HBO, which issued a chunky, three-paragraph statement this week defending the movie — based on the 2010 best-selling book — as a “balanced portrayal of the McCain-Palin campaign.”

The controversy isn’t surprising, since TV movies based on real-life political scenarios have a long track record of stirring the hornet’s nest.

“I think what it boils down to is loyalty, and how people want to see their clients, friends and political allies portrayed,” says Tom Doherty, a political strategist with Mercury LLC. “Palin supporters are obviously very intense . . . and these two sides are taking swipes at each other.”

It’s happened before.

In 2003, under pressure from conservative groups, CBS yanked its miniseries “The Reagans,” and farmed it out to pay-cable sister Showtime.

ABC’s “Path to 9/11” and “The Kennedys” also ignited political bombs.

“We didn’t set out to create a firestorm,” says Neil Meron, who co-produced “The Reagans.” “We’re filmmakers. We just wanted to tell a story.

“I do think that when you’re dealing with anything political, it’s going to polarize people,” he says. “If people try to politicize it, it’s out of your hands.”

In 2006, Bill Clinton and several of his ex-White House aides blasted ABC’s movie “The Path to 9/11,” for scenes showing how Clinton responded to terror threats when he was president.

The most recent political hot-potato TV movie was “The Kennedys,” an eight-part miniseries about JFK, Jackie et al which was slated to air last spring on History — until it was yanked because it was “not fit for the History brand,” the network said. It’s believed that History caved to pressure from Caroline Kennedy and other high-powered Kennedy supporters.

(“The Kennedys” finally aired on niche cable network Reelz.)

“I wound up watching ‘The Kennedys’ and, quite honestly, I didn’t understand all the fuss,” says Doherty. “I think sometimes people don’t take the finished product into consideration . . . they just jump in with their opinions of how it should be.”