Palin: Ready to work with Obama, ready to help media

In her latest national TV interview of her post-election blitz, Sarah Palin says she doesn't regret her criticisms of President-elect Barack Obama during the campaign, but is now ready to work with him on issues such as energy independence and special needs children.

In the interview that will air on CNN this afternoon, this year's vice presidential nominee said the election of the nation's first African-American president is "historic."

"I think this time is full of optimism," Palin said, according to a transcript released by CNN. "And it's an opportunity for everybody to get it together and start working together, for us as Republicans to reach out to Barack Obama and the new administration that will be ushered in and offer the solutions that we see for meeting some of America's great challenges right now.

"This is an opportunity to all be working together. And of course, President-elect Obama had promised also bipartisan efforts to meet the challenges. So let's seize this opportunity, let's take him up on that offer. And let's start working together."

In the last weeks of the campaign, Palin called Obama a socialist for his tax plans and accused him of palling around with terrorists for his association with William Ayers, who led the Weather Underground, a radical group that bombed government buildings during the early 1970s.

Palin said it was not "off-base nor mean-spirited, nor negative campaigning to call someone out on their associations and on their record. And that's why I did it."

"I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers," she added. "And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our US Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me.

"However the campaign is over," Palin said. "That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and to, again, make sure that all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation."

She also said she is concerned about her teenage son Track, who is serving in Iraq.

"We've got make sure there too that Barack Obama surrounds himself with strong commanders who understand that our boys, our girls, with their boots on the ground -- their lives, my son's life, is in his hands. And I do have faith in this new administration that they are going to look out for America's finest, those in uniform, who are protecting us and our freedoms," she said.

UPDATE: Palin also appears tonight on CNN, on "Larry King Live," where she is asked similar questions and gives similar replies.

But there's also an interesting exchange about the media when King mentions that CBS anchor Katie Couric has given Palin some advice: "Keep your head down, work really hard, and learn about governing before contemplating a presidential run.

"Well, thank you, Katie Couric, for your advice," says Palin. "And I won't reciprocate in giving her any advice, that's for sure, because I have respect for her and the profession that she is in. I would have greater respect though for the entire profession called mainstream media if we could have great assurance that there is fairness, that there is objectivity throughout the reporting world."

According to the transcript provided by CNN, Palin says Couric was fair to her during the series of interviews that raised questions in many minds about her depth of knowledge, or lack thereof, and her readiness for high office. Palin acknowledges she became annoyed by some of the questions.

And she offers to help the media become more objective and restore its credibility.

"I started out as a journalist," Palin says. "It's that important to me that that cornerstone of our democracy is given the credence and credibility that it deserves. But we have to have a two-way street here going where reporters are fair, objective, non-biased.

"We get back to the who, what, where, when, and why, and allow the viewers and the listeners and the readers to make up their own minds and not so much commentary," she added.