Palin fires pit bull-with-lipstick salvos

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By Jennifer Harper

Alaska has a new form of wildlife: Gov. Sarah Palin, who has turned into a mama tiger, or a grandmama tiger anyway, in defense of her young.

Mrs. Palin is engaging in an unusually personal attempt to protect her 18-year-old daughter Bristol from the inaccuracies of the press.

In three different accounts, journalists have described Miss Palin and/or her fiance Levi Johnston as "high-school dropouts."

Them there are fightin' words.

Mrs. Palin has personally contacted People magazine, the Associated Press and the Anchorage Daily News contesting Saturday's reports on the birth of Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, the unmarried couple's child and the governor's first grandchild.

The news organizations had blithely referred to the couple as "dropouts," leading the irked grandmother to set the record straight.

"You need to know that both Levi and Bristol are working their butts off to parent and going to school and working at the same time. They are certainly not high-school dropouts," she said in a phone message to People, which promptly published the words on its Web site Wednesday.

The designation, Mrs. Palin said, could harm the reputation of the young parents, "and their chances for good work opportunities."

The AP and the Alaska paper were contacted by e-mail.

The governor was not done yet, however. Within hours, she released a terse statement about the academic status of the young parents - and the motherhood matter itself.