Episode II: A New Outrage

Wait long enough in a day... someone has hacked Sarah Palin's emails.

The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.

It is outrageous, but there's a mitigating factor here. Like the Bush Administration, Sarah Palin enouraged her staff to use personal email for government business, reportedly because it cannot be subpoenaed. All government email accounts are public record. And Anonymous appears to have been acting out of a desire to circumvent that strategy rather a desire to be mean to Sarah Palin.

An e-mail from her press secretary, Meghan Stapleton, indicates the message is about the "Motor Fuel Tax Suspension".

The subject line of an e-mail from Randall Ruaro, her deputy chief of staff reads, "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger." Another one from Ruaro says, "Please approve" and another one is about "Court of Appeals Nominations."

Other e-mails from Ruaro indicate they're about employee and budget issues for the DPS. DPS is how Alaska refers to its Department of Public Safety.

Palin's chief of staff, Michael Nizich, sent her an e-mail August 22 with the subject line, "Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans." The subject line of another e-mail from Nizich reads "CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter."

E-mails from the governor's scheduler, Janice Mason, indicate that they're about Palin's schedule for the week of August 10.

On the other hand, it doesn't appear that anything untoward or scandalous was found in the emails. On the outrage-o-meter, I'd call this a draw. If she had used public accounts to begin with, the private accounts wouldn't have been hacked.

While I'm at it, if you are conducting government business using a private account FOR GOD'S SAKE don't use your Yahoo account. That's just askin' for trouble.