GOP: Thanks, Hacker!

[Politics] The much-publicized hack into Sarah Palin's quasi-personal Yahoo! mail account couldn't have worked out better for the McCain-Palin campaign.

As a result of the exploit, the account now has been deleted, meaning that Palin can spare herself the uncomfortable questions that would arise if she were to, say, erase evidence in the Troopergate investigation by deleting the account herself. Other uncomfortable questions include: Why was she using insecure Yahoo! mail accounts for official business in the first place? If it's because she was worried that her official (and presumably much more secure) .gov account was subject to open-records laws--not to mention court subpoenas--what was she hiding?

More importantly, is Palin's fetish for back-door secrecy a sign that, if elected, she would continue Dick Cheney's "I'm not part of the Executive Branch" policies of secret government?

The "hacker" also screwed up the data--it was released in screen shot form, for Pete's sake. A real hacker would have swiped a copy of the actual mail spool--creating a searchable text document complete with full mail headers, which would have been much more useful (and, likely, politically damning).

As it is, the "hacker" chose to include things like snapshots of Palin's kids--muddying the waters with a false impression that an elected official can carry out official business in secret, and that the public's access to official government records is somehow a "violation" of the government's "privacy."

So, on behalf of the neocon shadow government, thanks, hacker! You just solved a huge problem for McCain's unvetted running-mate. Couldn't have done it better if you were a GOP political operative. Psst! You can pick up your check at Karl Rove's office.

(Brandon Burt)