Bad Day to be Alaskan

Poor Alaska: If the population of The Land of the Midnight Sun thought their political star was in the ascendent, this may be the day of the big wane.

The writing has been on the wall for Sen. Ted "Intertubes" Stevens for a while, but his re-election hopes just took a big hammering. Today the senior senator for the most northerly state of the union was found guilty of seven charges of corruption for taking big-budget freebies from VECO Corp.

No happier news for The Last Frontier on the presidential front as the Sarah Palin burn-out is in full flame. McCain campaign operatives have started throwing the term "diva" around and accuse her of "going rogue."

Why, you may be scratching your head, would people within the campaign bad-mouth their own veep nominee? Simple, really: since the best piece of news the GOP can muster on the national stage is that McCain is ONLY trailing Obama by 5% in the latest Reuters poll (even Fox News has the Democrat up by 9%), there'll be a lot of campaign pros looking to distance themselves from the drag on the ticket (and if anyone really thinks Troopergate is done and dusted, think again: Legislative investigator Steve Branchflower is expected to release his full report on Friday.)