FRED THOMPSON HAILS SARAH PALIN AT REPUBLICAN CONVENTION

"Former senator and television star Fred Thompson has hailed Sarah Palin as a 'breath of fresh air' in a rousing speech that brought cheering delegates at the Republican Convention to their feet.

The former Tennessee senator gave Republican activists the red meat rhetoric they had been waiting for by lashing the liberal media, branding Democrats as elitists and holding up Senator John McCain's running mate, Mrs Palin, 44, as the beacon of ordinary American values.

'She is from a small town, with small town values, but that's not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family,' he said.

'Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.

'Well, give me a tough Alaskan governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union - and won - over the Beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.'

Republicans, incensed by the media coverage of the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, 17, and claims that Mr McCain panicked into making an ill-judged choice without proper vetting, were delighted."