This very balanced and perceptive view of Alaska and what it means in the American psyche comes from a British paper. I don’t think it could ever come from an American one:

Alaska is America’s greatest wilderness and Americans dream of the liberation they will find there. They go to hike, hunt, take a cruise or embark on an adventurous new life, free of the constraints of the other America they call “the lower 48”.

MORE: Here’s another story from the Times of London that supports the notion that Brits understand America better than our own media:

The contrast with Mr Obama is especially powerful. The very fact that Mrs Palin didn’t go to elite schools but succeeded nonetheless – the very ordinariness with which she so piquantly jabbed Mr Obama on Wednesday – is what will make her so appealing to Americans. And as a pro-life conservative she debunks in one swoop the enduring myth that all women subscribe to the obligatory nostrums of radical feminism.

EVEN MORE: Another Brit journalist has Palin envy:

WHY, why, why can’t WE have a Sarah Palin?

That was the question churning in my mind as I witnessed this astonishing American presidential race. …

She was an electrifying mix of passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking. The exact opposite of the slippery, two-faced, depressing bunch of third-raters who parade on our Westminster stage.