Another Palin smear bites the dust
posted at 8:59 pm on September 5, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

Nutcase bloggers will have to find another smear against Sarah Palin … again. Did you hear that Todd Palin’s former business partner tried to get his divorce records sealed? Conspiracy theorists immediately began speculating on line that Sarah Palin — that vixen! — must have had an affair and broken up the marriage. Why else would the partner suddenly act to seal his records?

As the Smoking Gun discovered, Scott Richter wanted them sealed — to protect himself from conspiracy theorists (h/t: William Amos):

[quote]So when the blogosphere discovered today (via an online court docket) that Scott Richter, a Palin associate, personally filed a sealing motion in Alaska Superior Court, well, conclusions were jumped to. Was Sarah Palin named as the other woman in a messy divorce action? Well, since Richter’s September 3 motion, a copy of which you’ll find below, was denied yesterday, his divorce filings remain open to the public. And a TSG review of the 98-page file shows that the Palins are only mentioned in Richter’s sealing request.

According to the filing, Richter wanted the documents deemed confidential in a bid to cloak details about his home, workplace, and phone numbers because “reporters and news agenciesâ€