A recently released batch of state e-mails shows former "First Dude" Todd Palin as intimately involved in state affairs -- too intimately, some say.

For those wild and interesting 30 months Sarah Palin ruled as governor of the 49th state, many Alaskans lived under the impression that hubby Todd -- the "First Dude," Iron Dog snowmachine racer, North Slope oil field worker, commercial fisherman, all-around average Alaska Joe -- was just hangin' out, watchin' the kids, ridin' the snowgo, and occasionally showing up for work with his union or onetime employer BP.

Now a decidedly different picture of Todd is emerging from the 1,200 state e-mails being released per terms of the state's public information laws and, possibly more significantly, from the catalog of another 243 e-mails the state is continuing to keep secret, claiming "executive privilege" or privacy issues.

The list of secret messages shows Todd was copied on "gas production issues," "talking points on rural Alaska," "potential budget vetoes," "briefing papers on Yukon Territory," "plans for special (legislative) session and petroleum production tax," "ASMI (Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute) issues," "personnel issue" and much more.

These e-mails leave the distinct impression that wherever Sarah Palin moved in state government, there was a shadow that moved with her -- the shadow of Todd Palin.

This impression is decidedly different from The New York Times' September 2008 portrayal of Todd as someone who "rises early to train for snowmobile events, then ferries the children to various sports and school activities."

Todd might have been doing all of those things, but it appears he also got on his computer to stay abreast of what was happening in state government and sometimes, perhaps, pull the levers of government himself.

In one of the e-mails released earlier this month, a note that appears to go only to Todd, Ivy Frye -- a longtime Palin aide and onetime director of the state's Boards & Commissions -- writes: "I started some background checks today and will share with you tomorrow if you're in the office. What a day, huh? Taking people off boards, putting them on."

Appointments to boards and commissions appear to have been a Todd priority, according to the e-mails, but so was the monitoring of Sarah's image. Friends of the Palins have long portrayed Todd as something of Sarah's protector, and after she was elected governor he seems to have come on like an old radio show:

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

When the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote critically of Sarah, Todd sent her staff an e-mail suggesting they cut off the flow of information to the newspaper. What he might have suggested in many other e-mails, however, is unknown either because comments were redacted or the e-mails themselves were withheld. A number of the latter from September 2007 list the subject matter as "strategy for responding to media allegations." (Crivella West and MSNBC.com have teamed up to provide a searchable database of Palin e-mails.)

September 2007 was when Gov. Palin canceled the Gravina Island Bridge in Ketchikan. As a gubnertorial candidate in 2006, she'd strongly supported construction of the so-called "bridge to nowhere." She said then the that term "nowhere" insulted local residents and insisted she would "not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project ... into something so negative."

Two years later in her vice-presidential acceptance speech before the Republican National Committee, she sang a different, conservative, budget-cutter tune that played magnificently Outside. She declared to thundering applause that "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' for that bridge to nowhere."

What role Todd played as adviser on this issue is unclear, as is his exact clout on directing any single issue that came before the Palin administration. Palin chief of staff Mike Nizich argued in a Nov. 6, 2008 letter to Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell that the size of Todd's clout doesn't matter, either. It could, he said, be as big as the governor wanted it be.