FORMER US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin came out swinging - and swearing - in her debut as a commentator for Fox News television.
The conservative former Alaskan governor and potential 2012 White House candidate played up her tough, homespun image in an interview with her new colleague, Fox's Bill O'Reilly.
Showing that wounds from her failed 2008 White House bid alongside presidential candidate John McCain last year remain fresh, she angrily defended her performance during the campaign.
She said reports that she had been poorly prepared and was unable, for example, to tell the difference between South and North Korea was a "bunch of B.S. from Schmidt and some of those".
Steve Schmidt was a top McCain adviser during the campaign and has since been scathingly critical of Ms Palin.
And renewing her war against much of the US media, she accused "political establishment reporters" of trying to "gin up controversy and spin up gossip. The rest of America doesn't care about that kind of crap."
In a taste of the political analysis she will bring to Fox, Ms Palin told viewers of The O'Reilly Factor that President Barack Obama's declining poll numbers would only get worse.
"Of course they're sinking. It was just a matter of time before more of that reflection of the people's uncomfortableness that they feel towards this administration is manifesting in these poll numbers," she said.
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