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My first week on the job here at Crooks and Liars, I went on CNN Newsroom with Rick Sanchez to talk about an investigative piece co-written with Max Blumenthal about Sarah Palin's longtime dalliances with Alaska's far-right elements, particularly the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.

At the time, the McCain campaign blew us off publicly. And unfortunately, none of our colleagues in other media settings picked up on the story and asked further questions about the issues it raised -- particularly at a time when the McCain campaign was busy accusing Barack Obama of "palling around" with "terrorists" and extremists.

Now, it turns out that my short appearance on TV threw Sarah Palin into a tizzy and provoked a quarrel with Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign. This from a CBS story by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe:

Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt.

The episode in question began when an investigative report published on the left-leaning Web site Salon.com raised questions about Palin's relationship with members of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) when she was mayor of Wasilla. The AIP's platform calls for a vote giving Alaskans the option to secede from the United States. It had already been widely known that Todd Palin was a registered member of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 and that Governor Palin had taped a recorded greeting at the party's 2008 convention.

On the morning of Oct. 15, Palin was aboard her campaign jet and en route to New Hampshire when she happened to catch a disparaging CNN segment that touted the Salon.com story, complete with a provocative graphic at the bottom of the screen reading, "THE PALINS AND THE FRINGE."

While shaking hands after a rally later that afternoon, someone on the rope line shouted a remark at Palin about the AIP.

The comment set her off. She worried that the campaign was not sufficiently mitigating the issue of her alleged connection to the party, which despite a platform that harkens more to the Civil War than the 21st century, continued to play a serious role in Alaska politics.

Palin blasted out an e-mail with the subject line "Todd" to Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and senior advisor Nicolle Wallace, copying her husband on the message (all of the e-mails are reprinted below as written).

"Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that's cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor's sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd's involvement in an anti-American political party," Palin wrote. "It's bull, and I don't want to have to keep reacting to it ... Pls have statement given on this so it's put to bed."

Schmidt hit "reply to all" less than five minutes after Palin's e-mail was sent. "Ignore it," he wrote. "He was a member of the aip? My understanding is yes. That is part of their platform. Do not engage the protestors. If a reporter asks say it is ridiculous. Todd loves america."

This clear cut response from the campaign's top dog carried an air of finality, but it did not satisfy Palin. She responded with another e-mail, adding five more names to the "cc" box, all of whom traveled on her campaign plane. They included her senior political adviser Tucker Eskew, senior aide Jason Recher, the lone traveling aide from her Alaska office Kris Perry, press secretary Tracey Schmitt and personal assistant Bexie Nobles.

Palin's insertion of the five additional staffers in the e-mail chain was an apparent attempt to rally her own troops in the face of a decision from the commanding general with which she disagreed. Her inclusion of her personal assistant was particularly telling about her quest for affirmation and support in numbers, since the young staffer was not in a position to have any input on campaign strategy.

"That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan," Palin wrote. "He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed."

Now, the problem with this response is that it's just factually false. Palin's connections with the AIP ran much, much deeper than Todd's paper affiliation. As we explained in the Salon story:

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When it was revealed in October that the Republican National Committee spent a whopping $180,000 on new clothes for Sarah Palin and her family, the McCain/Palin campaign promised that all the clothes would be donated to charity after Election Day. (McCain said on October 26 that 1/3 of the clothes had already been returned). Well, according to the NewMajority website, the clothes are sitting in trash bags at RNC headquarters in D.C.

New Majority:

But for reasons that remain mysterious, the clothes remain stashed at the RNC's Washington, D.C., headquarters. A source close to the issue told NewMajority that the clothes are "in the process" of being donated, and an RNC spokesman corroborated, saying the clothes have indeed been returned from Palin, "inventoried and will be appropriately dispersed to various charities." Attempts for an explanation of when and where the clothes will be donated went unanswered, and the governor's Alaska office does not comment on campaign issues.

The fact that the clothes have not been donated or publicly accounted for, however, has angered some big donors - who want to know exactly how their money was spent, and who are already enraged by the extravagant wardrobe figure. They say it's time for the RNC to air its dirty laundry, if you will.

This should really come as no surprise, being that we're talking about the disastrous McCain/Palin campaign. I just never thought that we would still be hearing stories like this three months after the election. Sheesh. Looks like those RNC lawyers dispatched to Alaska to retrieve Palin's clothes forgot to "donate" them.

As McCain's henchman Rick Davis was trying to label as "Secret Donations" amounts that are under the disclosure limits of the bill McCain himself wrote on campaign finance, and suggesting that Obama is taking in illegal foreign donations...

... the worst-run presidential campaign in history was rolling into another blunder.

John McCain's presidential election campaign has solicited a financial contribution from an unlikely source -- Russia's U.N. envoy -- but a McCain spokesman said on Monday it was a mistake.

In the letter, McCain urged Russia's U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to contribute anywhere from $35 (20 pounds) to $5,000 (2,912 pounds) to help ensure McCain's victory over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, currently ahead in voter preference polls. "If I have the honour of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America -- her strength, her ideals, her future -- before every other consideration," McCain assured Churkin.

Moscow's mission to the United Nations issued a terse statement on the Republican presidential candidate's letter, saying that the Russian government and its officials "do not finance political activity in foreign countries."

Yes, it was almost certainly a database error, and more than a few people as finding it amusing as hell. But it also undermines the McCain campaign's narrative in the most embarassing way.

It also leaves some questions open. The FEC's notes on public financing say:

A major party nominee who has accepted public funding for the general election may not accept any contributions to further his election. You may, however, help a publicly funded nominee by contributing to the candidate's compliance fund. A compliance fund is a special account maintained by publicly funded nominees solely for paying legal and accounting expenses incurred in complying with the campaign finance law. You may contribute up to $2,300 to the compliance fund of a major party nominee.

$5,000 dollars is over the limit set for the FEC. The campaign still was sending out to ask for money even though it has accepted public finance so was it clearly asking for a contribution to the compliance fund?

Time for an FEC audit of McCain's finances. That's what FOX and the rest would be baying for if this was an Obama campaign letter.

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(Big ups to Heather for the movies)

In the latest Presidential debate, two of the questions dealt with Russia and while both candidates tried to stress their differences they both sang pretty much the same kneejerk tune (although John McCain sang it with feeling).

McCain, seemingly forgetting his own admonition to Obama that you don't telegraph your thoughts or intentions to a nation you want co-operation from, repeated his tone-deaf claim that he sees the letters KGB when he looks in Vladimir Putin's eyes. McCain would need the goodwill of Russia on containment of loose nuclear materials or on supply lines to Afghanistan and would likely want its co-operation of on energy policy and on responses to Iran, the financial crisis and a host of other issues. How's he going to get that by attacking the Russian Prime Minister in such a personal way?

What he sees in President Medvedev's eyes he hasn't said yet, but it's doubtful he's even noticed the shuffle in Russia's top leadership. It wasn't "K.G.B." because the guy leading Russia now was never one of the "former apparatchiks" Putin has supposedly surrounded himself with.

McCain's rhetoric was in keeping with someone so close to the luridly fascist and virulently anti-communist U.S. Council for World Freedom.

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