From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage --

Robert Barnett, the Washington D.C. lawyer who negotiated Gov. Sarah Palin’s book deal, hasn’t always been in Palin’s corner.

Barnett is an ardent Democrat who helped Hillary Clinton prepare for 23 primary debates and then said he supported Barack Obama "with all my energy" after Clinton dropped out of the race.

But as a powerhouse in the publishing world he's represented clients of extremely varied political stripes including Obama, Oliver North, Bill Clinton, Lynne Cheney Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bob Woodward, Tim Russert, George Will, Art Buchwald, William Bennett, Tony Blair and Queen Noor of Jordan.

Barnett is a partner at Williams and Connolly, the Washington firm that also represents former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens in his criminal case.

Here's his bio.

The New York Times wrote an interesting profile of him in 2004 headlined "Lawyer’s Side Practice: Political Star’s Book Deals”. The story details Barnett’s skills in getting multi-million dollar book contracts.

“(Barnett’s) client roster looks like a cross between the Almanac of American Politics and the New York Times best-seller list and includes some of the paper's reporters, too,” said the story by Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

It also noted, among other things, that when Lynne Cheney (the wife of the vice president at the time) “wanted to suppress a reissuing of a steamy romance novel she wrote 25 years ago, Mr. Barnett got the job done.”

Bloomberg did its own Barnett story in 2007 headlined “Rove's $900-an-Hour Book-Deal Broker Preps Hillary for Debate.”