Sarah Palin to Take New Job as Fox News Pundit

WASHINGTON: Sarah Palin to Take New Job as Fox News Pundit, Sarah Palin has demonstrated considerable star potential, from her appearances on Saturday Night Live to her bestselling memoir and undisputed status as darling of the Republican angry crowd.

To those accolades must now be added a new badge: political commentator for Rupert Murdoch's rightwing Fox News channel.

Fox last night confirmed it had taken Palin on board as a pundit to appear on several of the cable news channel's shows. The deal will give the former vice-presidential candidate an invaluable television platform, beaming her into millions of potential voters' homes.

The move ends months of speculation after her surprise announcement in July last year that she was standing down as governor of Alaska.

Fox News is more than a natural fit for Palin; it is a match made in heaven.

While she received rough treatment at the hands of the other US TV networks, notably CBS where she had a series of disastrous interviews with Katie Couric, Fox was invariably kind to Palin during her rocky vice-presidential run. She could count among her supporters Fox figureheads including Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

Over the past few months, as opposition to the Obama administration has deepened, the affinity between Palin and Fox has grown in equal measure.

Both see themselves as champions of the "tea party movement" – the groundswell of discontent from angst-ridden and disaffected voters, some Republican, some independents – who believe President Barack Obama is driving America towards an alien world of socialism.