[Agrisalia]

TPM: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...me.php?ref=fpa

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) was, until about a half hour before the Rolling Thunder motorcycle run began on Sunday, the most prominent politician in attendance. Then Sarah Palin showed up.

Palin's arrival -- she showed up clad in black jeans, a leather jacket and a Harley Davidson helmet -- kicked off the Tea Party favorite's bus tour up the northeastern coast which has fueled speculation she'll run for president in 2012.

It also overwhelmed Rolling Thunder's security capabilities and strained organizers' patience as photographers, journalists and admirers swarmed the former Alaska governor after she hopped off the back of a black bike in the parking lot of the Pentagon (the AP reported her bike had a likeness of President George W. Bush on the windshield with the words "Miss Me?" written on it). Attendees worried the "paparazzi" would knock over their expensive bikes and shouted at photographers and journalists scrambling to ask Palin a question.

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"I don't think any talk about Palin coming here is right here, the talk is about Memorial Day, the talk is about like I said those people who have given that ultimate sacrifice," West said after making a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" joke because of this reporter's choice to wear a pink shirt to the event.

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Some were upset by the way Palin showed up.

"I'm very not appreciative of the way she came in here," Ted Shpak, Rolling Thunder's national legislative director, told Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post. "If she wanted to come on the ride, she should have come in the back." (Palin, instead, came in the front of the Pentagon's north parking lot, where event staff and press had gathered.)