According to several outlets Thursday, Andree McLeod's appeal over the state's decision not to release six particular Todd Palin emails concerning Alaska government business has been denied. Judge Patrick McKay denied the appeal because Todd Palin, as the spouse of then-Gov. Sarah Palin, could be considered an "advisor" to the governor, albeit not an official one. Therefore, the judge reasoned, the emails in question are subject to deliberative process privilege, also known as "executive privilege," thus, the state can withhold them from a public records request.

Palingates has published a lengthy post concerning the judge's decision to deny McLeod's appeal. It starts out a little slow, but builds near the end, and contains lots of screengrabs and links to full-text documents, so hang in there. Notably, Palingates shares our own confusion over this decision: Was Todd Palin an advisor to the governor or wasn't he? The latest finding is based on calling him an advisor, but one set of ethics charges against Sarah stemming from the so-called "Troopergate" matter were dismissed because he was a "private citizen."

The Palin family attorney, Thomas Van Flein, wrote a victory note for Sarah Palin's Facebook page (posted late Wednesday night). Van Flein's statement is notable to The Huffington Posts's Geoffrey Dunn because of what seems to be a cryptic reference to other ethics decisions just beyond the horizon. Dunn cites sources in Alaska who say that the ethics case accusing Sarah Palin of using her office for financial gain in connection to her legal defense fund is about to be decided against her. At this point, all that has been made public is a preliminary review of the case, so take the speculation with a tiny grain of salt. However, Van Flein does seem to imply something here: "There will be times when Sarah Palin will have to take one for the team in order to continue on with her message to the country and simply resolve matters without having to incur crushing personal debt.

After restating that dehumanizing metaphor which equates women with reasonless animals, Van Flein also attacks ethics challenges involving Todd's involvement in matters of state because they're implicitly anti-women and designed to marginalize "the new brand of feminist leaders" (yes, feminism is now a brand):

Further, as more and more women get elected to high office (What are they called now? -- “Mama Grizzlies”?), it is notable that challenges such as this, which were based on sexist notions and demeaning attitudes towards women, are being rejected. This suit challenged Todd Palin’s role as a first spouse and was implicitly premised on the idea that a male spouse must somehow exert too much influence over a female chief executive. Hence the demand to “see those emails” from Todd Palin; but contrast this with decades of silence relative to communications to prior executive spouses -- female spouses. That dismissive and contemptuous posture towards the new brand of feminist leaders was appropriately condemned by the court as lacking a basis in reality.