The hits keep right on coming for Senator Lisa Murkowski. This weekend, she got slammed by the Anchorage Daily News over the growing controversy surrounding a suspect land deal, which was first exposed last week by TPM Muckraker. This story has legs:

Sen. Murkowski's Kenai River land buy looks fishy.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has come under fire for buying a prime Kenai River lot at a cut-rate price from a major campaign contributor. And for good reason. She got a sweet deal from a wealthy political supporter, Anchorage real estate developer Bob Penney.

Sen. Murkowski's husband, Verne Martell, bought the 1.27-acre waterfront lot for $179,000-and-change at the end of 2006, according to spokesman Kevin Sweeney. That was the value assessed by the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Sweeney told the Daily News on Tuesday.

That might sound like a defensible way to set the price, but in fact, it's not close to the going rate for a lot on the world-famous fishing river.

Three days after the borough recorded the Murkowskis' purchase, the assessed value went up to $214,900. So right off the bat, it looks like she got a discount of 20 percent.

In fact, her friendly political discount was probably far bigger. The online real estate listing service for Alaska has one Kenai riverfront lot. The parcel is only one acre -- a quarter of an acre less than Sen. Murkowski's -- but the asking price is $399,000. Per acre, that's almost three times what the senator paid for hers.