The next time Putin rears up his head to peek into Alaska,

ask him if he can spare some change:

Russia's permanent mission to the UN has received a letter from U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain asking for financial support of his election campaign, the mission said in a statement on Monday.

"We have received a letter from Senator John McCain with a request for a financial donation to his presidential election campaign. In this respect we have to reiterate that neither Russia's permanent mission to the UN nor the Russian government or its officials finance political activities in foreign countries," the statement said.

According to Ruslan Bakhtin, press secretary of the Russian mission, the letter dated September 29 and signed by McCain, was addressed to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's envoy to the UN, and arrived on October 16.

The ambassador's title was not included in the letter, and was not clear why the letter had taken over two weeks to arrive.

Enclosed was a request for a donation of up to $5,000 to McCain's election campaign to be returned with a check or permission to withdraw the money from the donor's credit card until October 24.

Individual donations to candidates' election campaigns are capped by law at $2,300, and it is illegal to accept donations from foreign nationals.

Click on the title of the post for a link to the story. Predicted McCain camp reaction: "The Russian Information Agency has planted a despicable lie about Senator McCain. It is unsurprising that Barack Hussein Obama has the support of socialists and Communists around the world, who will do anything to see he is elected. Obviously, that includes lying about John McCain, a decorated war hero and former POW."

This comes via Politico, which has a link to the letter. Ben Smith, Politico's author, claims the story was confirmed by embassy press secretary Ruslan Bakhtin, but the link to the embassy-provided release also includes a link to the letter itself. That downloads as an unprotected word document, though it does read like a standard campaign solicitation.

True or not, it does fit the rightwing pattern: Accuse your opponent of the very malfeasance you yourself are currently perpetrating. While the crowd surrounds the newly-minted suspect, you walk away with the loot. Winger TV does this all the time--keeping people so busy looking for liberal bias in the media that they have no idea how viciously they're being spun.