Former Gov. Palin says tea baggers are independent, countering polls that show 87% are highly partisan

Former less than one-term Gov. Sarah Palin appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Tuesday praising the Tea Party and Fox News Channel. She called the Tea Party a beautiful movement.

Host Jay Leno asked Palin what she thinks about joining Fox News and becoming an analyst. Palin said that she's there to build trust in the media. She said that the mainstream media is quite broken and there needs to be the fairness and balance in there in the media. Leno laughed at her suggestion of Fox being fair or balanced.

The Tonight Show host asked Palin about the "beautiful" Tea Party movement, Palin portrayed it as a group of many independent people who are not excessively partisan, and not on one side or another.

Her claims of the tea party being independent and non partisan contradict to a February CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll which showed that 87% of tea party activists support Republicans.

Palin expressed concern to Leno that if the movement were to evolve into a political party it would likely hurt Republicans.