Local hero Palin receives rapturous homecoming

US: SARAH PALIN has returned to Alaska for the first time since becoming the Republican vice-presidential candidate, speaking yesterday at a deployment ceremony for 4,000 soldiers, including her 19-year-old son Track, who are going to Iraq, writes Denis Staunton in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Three thousand people turned out to see Ms Palin when she arrived late on Wednesday night in Fairbanks, about 350 miles north of Anchorage.

"Everywhere we're going, the response really has been overwhelming," she told the crowd, which spilled out of a vast aircraft hangar.

"I knew the coldest state would give us the warmest welcome."

One sign in the crowd said "Read my lipstick: Sarah, Sarah," a reference to Ms Palin's joke at the Republican convention that the difference between a "hockey mom" and a pitbull was lipstick.

Another alluded to the controversy over Barack Obama's use of the phrase "putting lipstick on a pig", which Republicans claim was a slur on Ms Palin.

"You can put lipstick on a community organiser but they're still just a community organiser," the sign read.

A few dozen Obama supporters gathered outside the rally but the mood was overwhelmingly celebratory and Ray Perdue, who works in a Fairbanks hotel, said the whole of Alaska was cheering Ms Palin.

"We're so excited for her, but we'll miss her here. She's done more for this state than all the last governors put together. She's not afraid of big oil. She's not afraid of anything. And she's not afraid of Barack Obama," he said...................................................

As the Obama campaign struggles to decide how to counteract the Palin phenomenon, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden admitted that he may not have been the best choice.

"Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice-president of the United States of America," he said at a rally in New Hampshire.

"She's a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she's easily qualified to be vice-president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me."

© 2008 The Irish Times

There's always more than one way of reporting things - but maybe the Irish times doesn't have an axe to grind!

I've said that Sarah Palin;s views are anathema to me but reiterate that this sort of bias doesn't help to address the real issues