Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Perry's office acknowledged that the e-mail records were unusually "candid." Black, the spokesman, said such electronic documents are usually destroyed and therefore don't usually end up being published.

Like laundry dumped on the front lawn, hundreds of internal e-mails from Gov. Rick Perry's office spilled out into the open Thursday, but the long-serving Republican offered no apologies for some of the raw exchanges among top aides and allies.

The e-mail records, which had been slated for destruction until a citizen activist stepped in, touch on everything from Perry's advocacy of presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani to a planned gift -- cowboy boots and a hat, of course -- for a visiting Arab sheikh.

But so far it's the candid discussions among top staff members that have sparked the most outrage. In one e-mail from November, for example, a Perry aide implied that former Secretary of State Jack Rains was not sober -- after "one of his long liquid lunches" -- when he wrote to complain about a potential job applicant. Incensed, Rains called the Perry aide, appointments chief Ken Anderson, an "idiot" and demanded a prompt apology.

"I am outraged a member of the governor staff would maliciously malign my character," Rains said in an e-mail forwarded to the Star-Telegram. "I am waiting for a call from the governor and an apology from" the aide. It didn't appear as though that would happen.

Perry, sounding like a parent trying to stop the kids from squabbling, said Thursday that the two men could mend fences on their own.

"From my perspective, this is like two kids -- 'I talked about you, you talked about me,'" he said. "They'll figure it out."

Perry made his comments a day after the Star-Telegram published excerpts from several of the internal messages. They were provided by open-government activist John Washburn, a Milwaukee software developer who has fought with Perry's office for weeks to get the records. On Thursday, Washburn posted hundreds of the e-mail messages online. Among them:

A message suggesting that Perry lost interest in meeting with a Mexico state governor because he was too preoccupied with his activities as head of the Republican Governors Association and his role promoting the presidential candidacy of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Asked in November whether Perry still wanted to schedule a visit with Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, Deputy Chief of Staff Kris Heckman said: "I think he was interested, but that was before his increased RGA role and Rudy."

Perry spokesman Robert Black said Thursday that no visit with Hernandez had been scheduled but that Perry still wanted to meet with him this spring or summer. He also noted that the two were simply planning a fishing trip. Asked whether Perry punted on Hernandez because he was too busy as head of the Republican group or presidential politics, Black responded: "It's just a matter of scheduling and time."

A message discussing the Texas visit of Sheikh Ahmed of the United Arab Emirates, and Perry's plan to give him a gift.

"The governor mentioned wanting to greet HH [His Highness] with a 'Texas Cowboy Hat' ... and a pair of 'Wide Open for Business' boots," one aide wrote, then discussed how to get measurements from the Arab dignitary.

Candid and often plaintive discussions about the financial and legal limits of using state money to hire law enforcement officers to help patrol the Texas-Mexico border, one of Perry's top priorities.

"It's hard to provide incentives to counties to send their officers to the border, because we can't support both a deputy's job position in Tarrant County AND pay that same person for working border security," one Perry aide said. "I guess we'll have to give out obscene bonuses to attract volunteers."

Perry's office acknowledged that the e-mail records were unusually "candid." Black, the spokesman, said such electronic documents are usually destroyed and therefore don't usually end up being published.

In fact, it was Perry's long-standing policy of automatically deleting e-mail after seven days that triggered the recent disclosures. Washburn, an advocate for government transparency, said he was appalled to learn that the governor sent e-mail to the electronic shredders once a week. So he filed an official request for the records in November, and has been battling with Perry's office ever since.