Post-election gossip: Towel-head Palin lacked McCain OK for terrorist-pal attack

Newsweek is rolling out its “How He Did It, 2008″ series of untold secrets from inside the presidential campaigns that were embargoed until after the election. Even among revelations about foreign cyber attacks against both campaigns, the Sarah Palin material is most riveting:

One aide estimated that [Palin] spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband.

[R]eports from the Secret Service show[ed] a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied.

Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue.

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, [McCain aides] Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.

This is only an edited sample from the trove of treasures, to which Newsweek says it will add more items to its Web site in coming days. Palin’s shopping spree appears to be a particularly rich vein to mine.