From the "Things that make me go hmmm…" file.

PLUMSTEAD, Pa. - November 10, 2010 (WPVI) -- Call it "Cookiegate". Sarah Palin is baking up a little controversy in Pennsylvania. She was the guest speaker last night at a fundraiser at Plumstead Christian School in Plumstead Township.

Baking up, cooking up, ginning up, however you want to put it, what Palin was doing in PA was just creating a "controversy" for its own sake. Apparently aghast at the possibility that the Pennsylvania Department of Education might suggest that fewer sweet treats is probably a good idea for kids, Palin staged a protest by bringing sugar cookies to a private school that would remain perfectly to feed its students all the sugar pops and fruit punch they can handle, if such were their wont.

It's really a nothing of a story, except...

School officials hope her appearance in the end will bring in several hundred dollars. Palin's appearance fee, thought to be $75,000, was reportedly covered by private donors.

She took $75K so the school could raise "several hundred"? No wonder she brought cookies. That's bake sale money. Sounds like she's about as big a draw as Mary Sue's fudge brownies.

What makes me go hmm, though, is that fee. If it came from someone who actually wanted to help the school raise a few hundred bucks, well, they clearly could have written a check for a few hundred, or a few thousand, dollars and have accomplished their purpose. It seems more likely that they simply wanted to put some money in Palin's pocket, and the school offered a convenient conduit. But who? And why? Hmmm…

Then, of course, there's the whole question of what kind of person would take that kind of money in exchange for that kind of return. Wouldn't you think someone as publically pious and personally wealthy as Palin would be helping out little Christian schools gratis whenever the opportunity presented? If it was a special trip, some expense money might be justified, but $75,000? Not for some corporate retreat or think tank banquet, but for a nickel and dime fundraiser?

Something about that makes me go hmmm, too.