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OK Cyn, i'll address the issue of run-of-the-mill corruption.
The Palin case is interesting because the McCain campaign has used the theory of executive supremacy in a case of ordinary corruption. As an ordinary governor, she abused her executive powers in a family feud. It doesn't reflect well on her, but ultimately, it's a family feud in someplace far away. However, once she became the VP candidate, the McCain campaign defended her with the theory of the supreme & transcendental executive. This idea has been propagated by Republican executives and their agents. It's on paper, in the Yoo torture memo , in Nixon's idea of executive privilege, in Carl Schmitt's books. The new development is that in Schmitt and even in the torture memos, supreme power is necessary because we're in a "state of exception", a crisis for the body politic. The crisis in Palin's case seems to be "we're doing poorly in the polls and would do worse if we got busted for this."
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