He was insanely stuipid
Yep. Does that kind of stupidity even qualify as skiddie?

a cgi proxy isnt going to save him, only delay the process
Yep again. I have used the very same proxy this dope used, except I actually read the privacy policy. This kid probably thought because it uses HTTPS, he was set. Had he read the privacy policy, he would have known the owner keeps logs for 7 days and those logs would be surrendered to authorities if illegal actions were taken using his proxy services.

And what the hell is a prominent politician using Yahoo for
Maybe she wasn't so prominent when she opened the account? In any event, I still don't place sole blame (or even a majority of it) on Palin for this attack. What she did was naive but, there are some major flaws with the "Forgot My Password" service that need to be addressed pronto.