One of our trolls demanded to know this morning why my Headline for this story was so different from Politico’s headline. Answer: Because their headline, like much of the story itself, was laughably misleading. In fact, rather than read me blathering about it, take five minutes and read it yourself (or at least this takedown of it) — being careful to note how long it takes them to mention that (a) Palin hasn’t demanded a fee, (b) Palin hasn’t done anything to suggest to the group that she’s interested in attending, and (c) the group itself says it’s raising money only to pay for a large venue in case she does decide to show. They wanted a story about a greedy diva who was looking to cash in on her political celebrity, and darn it, they were going to get it. Sample quotation from the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the story:

“If somebody tells me they want me to pay an appearance fee, it tells me they’re not very serious about running for president,” said Ed Failor, Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief and an influential GOP insider.

“I found it really, really odd,” Failor said.

If, if, the Iowa group that’s trying to get her to come really is raising money to pay her fee, then that’s an interesting story — not because it proves that Palin’s money-hungry but because it’d show that she’s in such hot demand that even grassroots organizations in Iowa are willing to offer her incentives to appear at their gigs.

So unfair is the Politico piece that it’s even being knocked by … Newsweek. Which, naturally, didn’t stop Matthews from running a segment about it tonight, omitting all the key details.