Apparently while Sarah Palin has been running around the country, Russian energy giant Gazprom has, um, reared its head in Alaska.

MOSCOW, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom  said on Tuesday its top executives had visited U.S. state Alaska, where the gas company is seeking a share in a project to pipe gas via Canada to the United States market.

The world’s largest gas producer discussed gas production, transport and supply to Alaska — which shares a border to its east with Canada and a sea border with Russia to its west — with the region’s officials and the CEO of ConocoPhillips, Jim Mulva, Gazprom said in a statement.

On a substantive level, the TransCanada pipeline is Palin’s pet project. Her not being around to add the other Alaskan neighbor to the taxpayer funded pipeline construction is meaningful. I’ll be curious to see if Palin has authorized her subordinates in the executive branch of the State of Alaska to negotiate a place for Gazprom in the gas line deal. If she did, I can’t imagine Alaskans being too pleased about it. Nor can I see it helping with her whole head-rearing theories of foreign policy.

What surely would not be meaningful is any further Palin analysis of Russian foreign policy and how she keeps a watchful eye on her neighbors to the West…except when, you know, she’s not.