Don't Juneau? Link to a link to an Alaska blog

Actually, links to a couple of blogs ... over the holiday weekend, I've been chasing the Sarah Palin story. Two or three reasons, not necesarily in order of importance: (1) I'm a political junkie at the best of times; (2) I've been fascinated with Alaska politics ever since I started tagging along several years ago when my wife was invited to speak at human services conferences in Anchorage; and (3) I think Palin's selection as this year's Republican vice presidential candidate illustrates some important points we're studying in COMM 386 (media and government) and other courses.

So I've been checking the blogs in addition to more sober-sided news sources like The Washington Post, The New York Times and BBC.co.uk.

The first one is The Swamp, put out by The Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau. It's probably my favorite source of political chit-chat, including this colloquy by corresponents Jim Oliphant, who is following the Obama campaign, and Jim Tankersley, who is covering the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. (Full disclosure: The awful pun in my headline, I stole from Oliphant and Tankersley, whose two-way piece was headlined "Doubletake: Juneau what I mean?"

And the second blog, called Mudflats: Tiptoeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics. The subtitle says it all, although I am also impressed by the very attractive photo of the mudflats along Cook Inlet near Anchorage. The Trib's review of Mudflats says, with more alliteration than I might choose to use, "Palin pick makes Alaska blog a must-read." Here's the Trib's take:

Now that Sen. John McCain has decided to turn his presidential campaign into a sequel of "Northern Exposure," the all-things-Alaska hit 1990s TV series, an essential guide is needed to Gov. Sarah Palin's Alaska and can be found on the Mudflats blog.

Written by an East Coast transplant to Alaska who goes by the moniker AK Muckraker, the blog gives an Alaskan eye view of Palin's political career and the state's rather colorful politics.

One warning. Mudflats is biased. "AK Muckraker," the author, is one of Alaska's few Democrats. He flat doesn't like Palin. He doesn't like any of the Alaska Republicans. But he writes well. And he seems to know the state's "rather colorful" political flora and fauna. If you know where he's coming from, you can sift through the partisan rhetoric and get an interesting take on things.