Small Blawg

Shannon Moore of the Huffington Post, trying to be polite for a G-rated audience, told Keith Olbermann tonight on his show that Sarah Palin is "guano crazy."

So, permit me to coin "guanomania" for this affliction, and "guanomaniac" for the afflicted.

Earlier this week, I'd heard someone use the phrase "batcrap crazy" as a slight bowdlerization of the typical construction, but guanomania is something you can say in front of the kids. I like it.

Oh, gah! This was simply dreadful. You can tell from her script that, at the moment, she doesn't have a single political professional from the big leagues as her coach.

She's either on her own,* or using provincial "talent," and it's... it's... it's a paean to socialism, among other things. Seriously. When she brags about how she was able to extract money from the corporate pillagers who are extracting Alaska's natural resources, she's touting expanded socialism as her greatest accomplishment, without using the "S" word. And "beware of government largess," she says, to the residents of the only state where every citizen gets a gummint check just for breathing.


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There's more, of course. There are incoherent references to soldiers like clumps of unmixed lard throughout this very heavy biscuit. There are her usual gripes about reporters. Really, there was no news at all except for what I said above: this was a script written without professional muscle, and that says something about how the right-wing king-makers feel about Citizen Palin right now.

She is great with a professional speech in her hands. When she opens her mouth on her own, nothing but toads and word salad comes out.

LATE EDIT: Bless the good souls at Vanity Fair, they did what anyone who reads and writes English for a living must long to do: they copy-edited her speech. Not the final one on July 26; the earlier one, July 4 weekend, when she announced she was winning the Iquitarod.

Also, Daily Kos has a brief look back at the Sarah Palin Hall of Shame, lowlights from the past year or so.

*SECOND EDIT: On Hardball tonight, MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnell told host Chris Matthews that Palin had grown so paranoid in her last weeks, she'd stopped communication with her own staff, and would not even tell her press aides where she was going in her final days. "They didn't even know she was in a camper coming up here with her kids." ("Here" being Fairbanks, Alaska, not the Appalachian Trail — that's some other governor who lied and hid from their own staff.) So apparently she wasn't relying on local talent, either, but was giving us a speech July 26 which was pure Palin - purely pitiful.

No comment on the relationship between the two, except to remind you that Meghan McCain famously said she will not comment about Sarah Palin at all, ever — thus providing a pretty clear comment. And in fact, Ms. McCain tries to squirm out of commenting on a great many things. But before we get into that, I need to share a metaphor I've never heard before, provided by Republican consultant Mark McKinnon on an appearance with Rachel Maddow July 7:

[Palin] may be crazier than an acre of snakes.

Hissssss! He surely has a point. Palin keeps forgetting that erstwhile almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston has access to a national microphone whenever he wants it, and that he lived in her daughter's bedroom for lo, those many months while they were waiting for their child to arrive (something which Palin tries to deny for fear of alienating her berserker moralist base.) Johnston nailed her this week by telling the press precisely why she quit the governorship early: based on what he heard living in her house, she wanted the money for the book, and there's a possible reality show in the offing. And then, showing off her distinctly non-Presidential chops, Palin sent a snarky spokeswoman out to accuse the 19-year-old father of her grandson of engaging in "fiction" and "acting."

Meanwhile, the press has been making much of Republican candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia indicating a vigorous disinterest in having her appear on their behalf.* What she buys them is far less than what she costs them in the sort of electorate those two states have. Governor Rick Perry of Texas is eager to have her; he shares her husband's secessionist inclinations.

I caught Meghan McCain on Real Time with Bill Maher last night; it was a re-run of the June 19 show. She wants it both ways: at 24, she wants to be taken seriously, and to have the weight to appear with the likes of Paul Begala, also on that night's roster. Maher pressed her several times about the way Palin lied about Letterman's recent joke about Bristol, tagging him as a rapist and child molester, versus the way her own father was lied about by Bush 43's campaign in 2000, being accused of fathering "a black child out of wedlock and crazy from the 'Nam," and she'd chirp at him that she just wants to move on, move on, MOVE ON ALREADY MISTER OLD GUY. Maher said, "Isn't that the same thing, telling lies about somebody?" In a Valley Girl whine, she responded,

I'd love to look forward in politics, and 2009 and the Obama administration. I hate talking about 2000, it was nine years ago, I was in puberty when it happened, like I'd love to move on and talk about my career now, that's what I'd love to do.

She giggled and snickered like a Kathy Najimy character, complete with Najimy's head fakes, inflections, and postures. Maher kept kid-gloving her, as she is, after all, still quite the kid and working hard to maintain that image. Giggle! Snicker! Wiggle!

Paul Begala finally put a smack down. Young McCain was opining that Obama, not yet six months into his administration, needs to quit "completely blaming everything on its predecessor, completely... I'm sick of hearing, 'We were handed this, we were handed this...' I know, everybody knows, but we need to move on." (The press, btw, has made note that Obama does not do this; that he rarely mentions Dubya at all, in any context). Begala said he felt Dubya had not been blamed nearly enough, and remarked that "Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter every day for eight years." McCain piped up winningly: "Well, I wasn't born yet, so I wouldn't know."

"Well, I wasn't born during the French Revolution, but I know about it," Begala snapped back. She deserved it. Despite her modest self-deprecation in her intro, she seemed to want to be treated as an expert who was literally born yesterday year, someone born full-grown with a blog in the 2008 election, like Venus from the waves or Athena from her father's thigh, who should be permitted to pretend ignorance of all that went before.

Not all of the ignorance is pretense, however. Meghan McCain, youthful and pretty, made a big titillating splash with the weary journalists who'd been covering her septuagenarian papa when she boldly announced some months back that she's not a virgin and the Republican party needs to loosen up about sex. She tried to defend her remarks on Maher's show by explaining that the Party either considers a woman a "pius" "holy virgin" and abstinent, or at least "meant to be abstinent," (a reference to Bristol Palin's leadership of Candie's abstinence campaign after the birth of her son) or a "skank...a perverted sex addict," and that this isn't fair; "unhealthy, especially for young women."

Yes, dear, we know. Don't expect anything else from the Republican party, in which legislators keep mistresses or patronize prostitutes without any political consequences, while staunchly voting against sex ed, birth control, abortion, and gay marriage. Ms. McCain, how did you make it through college without ever hearing about the Madonna-Whore dichotomy? Or did you assume it was just another slam at the singer? How could she make it through the conversation without using the phrase "double standard"? It seems more than passing likely she's never heard either phrase, or understood them if she has. McCain acted the fluffy bunny to the extent that Maher took on a distinctly kind and avuncular role, even literally leaping up to defend her when Begala treated her like a grown-up, as well as gently telling her she'd done well before launching into his concluding monologue.

Maher had a nice line to close the show: "Over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital." And that's a nice line to close this post with, as it circles right back 'round to Palin and the acre of snakes.

*This may be in Virginia, where gubernatorial hopeful Bob McDonnell has welcomed the following parade of 2012 hopefuls: Haley Barbour (MS), Mike Huckabee (AR), Mitt Romney (MA, sort of), and Bobby Jindal (LA).

Now, I loathe the woman as much as I loathe the Republican Party as a whole, which is a whole lot of loathin' goin' on.

However.

It occurs to me that there is one way that Palin can be actually useful in a big way and do her party a huge service: she can quit the party itself.

No, I'm not being rude. I mean it. If Palin quits and tries a third-party candidacy, a lá Ross Perot, the Republican primary could benefit by having her draw off the worst of the hard-core loons — that is, her base.

And if she draws the nutballs out of the Republican primary, the Republicans might actually nominate a person who does not adhere point-by-point to the radical religious right's agenda. This would be bad for the Democrats, though in 2012 at least, the Obama juggernaut should still be good enough to steamroll whomever the goppers prop up.

As far as I'm concerned, though, I'd like the Republicans to continue to nominate candidates who are conspicuously crazy and unfit for the job. I fear "moderate" Republicans (what are those? the ones who want pregnant women seeking abortions just imprisoned instead of executed?) as much as the far right does, but for different reasons. As long as the book-burners and gay-baiters get their way in the primary, I get mine in the general.

Palin admitted in her resignation speech that she's going to trot around the Lower 48 collecting help-me chits from candidates desperate enough to invite her — desperate enough for the support of Palin's core constituency to ignore her significant negatives from all other segments of the party. That serves her well whether she runs as a Republican or as the candidate of the Palin Party.

(If large-eared Texan Perot's symbol ought have been a large-eared Chihuahua perro, can you come up with a good totem for Palin's vanity platform? Maybe a riff on her "dead fish" comment in the resignation; an Alaskan salmon floating belly-up? Because whether the FBI is lying or not — and law enforcement is permitted to lie — there's certainly something fishy about the sudden quit which cannot entirely be explained by her unhappiness over the coincident Vanity Fair article.)

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, if Palin is in the primary, Huckabee can lay low and let Palin attack Romney's religious beliefs all by herself. The Christianists who dominate the Republican primary electorate doom Romney, though everyone pretends not to know it. But if Palin stomps off, taking her nutballs and fruitbats with her? Well, that's another story. It's possible that without Palin's cadre to augment his own faithful, Huckabee won't be able to come up with the numbers to trounce Romney's good looks and money. Romney has the corporatist vote sewn up. If the religious vote is either MIA or divided, that might be enough.

She and husband Todd have shown an interest in fringe politics for years. Though she may not believe it today, the grumpy old men of the Groaty Old Party are not going to touch her with a ten-foot pole after last week's fiasco. Karen Tumulty summed it up: Sarah wins the Iquitarod. She quit four colleges before graduating from a fifth. She spent her last year as mayor running for Lt. Governor. She lost, but was speedily appointed by the new governor to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission. She quit the Commission in her first year. She informally dropped being a full-time governor in 2008 to run for Veep with John McCain, and she officially quit the governorship eight months later (16 months early) because... well, because being an author and speaker makes more money and is more exciting than bein' a dumb ol' governor on a stage which she now feels is too small for her, and which has grown slick with hurled fruit. The sheer freedom of the lame duck status she so despises apparently has not occurred to her. Lame ducks are free to peck and kick and pull feathers, to work for the common good without fear of partisan consequences.

And be damned to everyone who raised money, who gave money, who circulated nomination petitions for her, who knocked on doors for her, who made cold calls for her, who believed her when she said she wanted to be Alaska's governor.

When Newt Gingrich makes his next electoral run, I'm going to call up the Secretary of State or whoever tracks elections down in Georgia and find out what it cost to put on the special election when he quit in a pout just a few weeks after his voters turned out for him, just because the House Republicans didn't want him to be Speaker any more. It was a sum in the millions, I'm certain, all to indulge his tantrum.

At the moment, the Republican field for president in 2012 has narrovwed again, with only Romney and Huckabee as major candidates — and given the composition of the Republican primary electorate, Romney cannot beat Huckabee. And Huckabee scares me to death.. More on that some other time; meanwhile, Sarah Palin self-destructed today (and don't you just know that she joins Michael Jackson in Mark Sanford's prayers? That is, if Sanford still has enough sanity to know what to be grateful for. His recent behavior suggests he does not.)

In her resignation speech, she made it clear that her personal agenda is outside Alaska, expressing a strong desire to assist candidates outside the state in order to collect help-me chits for her 2012 run. (No, she didn't phrase it quie that way, but that's what she meant.)

It has to be the presidency or nothing. Quitting halfway-through your term as governor and highlighting your urge to bug out is not the way to give Lisa Murkowski a serious contest in the senatorial election of 2010. Having essentially told the voters of Alaska that they and the state are just too small for her now, and that they bore her, and that the remaining eighteen months of her term would be unbearable tedium and ennui, Palin should not expect to be elected to anything back there for a good long while. And she'd do well to avoid Alaskan veniremen, too, should that become necessary.

But senator is small potatoes to a woman who believes her god has raised her up for a divine purpose, that being to bring to the Oval Office the same stupidity, corruption, venality, greed, and personal vindictiveness she brought to the governor's chambers in Juneau—on the rare occasions she was there.

Perhaps it is an understandable error that she has confused McCain's last-quarter desperation with divine intervention. It had to be one or the other that almost put the petty mayor of a petite rural town a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

Her 18-minute resignation was as poorly delivered as Bobby Jindal's response to Obama's February's joint-session speech (akin to a formal State of the Union address). This is passing strange; Palin's best asset is her ability to delivery lines convincingly, and today she simply could not. The speech was delivered in a high-speed gabble. She was literally gasping for breath, as if she'd just run from the cops.

And perhaps this is what's going on. Senator Ted Steven's bribe-giving friends are Sarah Palin's friends too. Palin has been able to step on the fifteen ethics investigations by controlling what information she will deliver to law enforcement. When that means the state cops, whose director she appoints (and fired one already, for not helping her prosecute a vendetta against her ex-brother-in-law), or the state legislature, which either can't or won't do much to her, she's fairly safe. But when the FBI comes calling, it's another story. Crimson from their loss of Stevens' conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct, the feds could be looking to redeem themselves by bringing another high-profile case (or they equally likely could be fleeing from another high-profile case).

Whether it's the feds, the locals, or merely the Alaskan press that Palin fears, she is clearly afraid. The transcript of today's speech can't possibly convey how nervous and frightened she seemed. Few of her lines were well-written, but those few which did have some rhythm to them were wasted—she fumbled them all. And she was painfully tone-deaf, asserting that "If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choices!", a phrase which in her mouth is guaranteed to immediately raise the hackles and open the wallets of pro-choice voters.*

She invoked "the politics of personal destruction" to introduce her contention that the ethics investigations have cost her and husband Todd "more than half a million in legal bills, just to set the record straight." Ah, now there's a reference to part of what motivated today's resignation: as Citizen Sarah, she can charge quite a bit for her public appearances and keep every penny. As Governor Palin, she couldn't charge a thing.

Whether she plans to use that money to pay for a criminal defense, or to fill her 2012 campaign hope chest, she needs the money and this is her best chance to make it. The Vanity Fair article released this week which so wounded her feelings probably played a role in the timing of this — she's notoriously thin-skinned — but there's something else here, something that tilted the balance enough to make her willing to give up the power of the mansion in favor of the power to fill her purse. Was it a hope that if she stepped down and left town, whoever is in pursuit will not follow?

Final notes: Ms. Palin, never ever say "John McCain tapped me" in front of a camera or microphone ever again. It doesn't matter how you finish that statement; no woman in public life can afford to structure a sentence that way.

And Ms. Palin, if you think the press in Alaska is too hard and hot to handle, you really weren't paying attention last year, were you? You thought Katie Couric was being mean when she asked you what you like to read and you couldn't answer. You of all people should know the difference between throwing an unpacked snowball and firing an automatic weapon from a helicopter. That was the unpacked snowball. Show your twitching nose down here in election season and our press corps will teach you how Alaska's outmatched wolves feel when they hear you whirling overhead. Vanity Fair just lightly scratched at a brief few months of your life. If you run for president, they'll be back, and since you compliantly bled all over the water today, they won't be alone.

*The Post apparently punctuated its version to try to show her emphases; Alaska's official website is written more plainly (though heavy on the exclamation points).

It's summer, and there's too much going on to spend much time blogging, though heaven knows I'd love to roll in the sex scandal muck for a while, or chastise Dana Milbank for his silly attack on Obama's willingness to take questions relayed from Iran at a press conference, or give Obama a swift kick in the briefs (legal briefs, that is) for his DOJ's vicious anti-gay support of Dubya's position on gay marriage in the Smelt case, spitefully delivered just a couple of weeks before the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Nope, no time for any of that today while the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming, bees buzzing, and oh, look out, if I'm seriouslyl hitting the birds and the bees already I'll start babbling about Mark Sanford in no time.

So instead, may I direct your attention to an extensive profile of Sarah "Slippery" Palin, presidential prospect and all-around loon? Nine thousand and eight hundred words, according to one count, by Todd S. Purdom in August's Vanity Fair, already online here:

What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

Thanks to Politico for the heads-up.

Pay attention! The Ledbetter Act and the Fair Pay Restoration Act have passed the House and are on their way to the Senate, and so it's time to write your Senators and let them know you want to see people who have been discriminated against at work have at least the same small chance of getting justice that they had before Dubya's Supreme Court re-wrote history in 2007.

In other news, Meghan McCain, one of erstwhile candidate John's three daughters, has announced that she's not going to comment on his choice of Sarah Palin for veep. One doubts she was surprised that Daddy went for yet another beauty queen. The fact that the choice has still rendered her speechless shouts louder than words.

And, finally, the infamous and inept Joe the Plumber (Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) is already making a fool of himself in his new career as a "war correspondent" in Israel. The Huffington Post located these precious quotes on reporters and reportage:

They're supposed to bring the news to you unbiased. They're supposed to actually report it and then let you make your opinion ... What I can provide are actual real questions and get real answers. I'm not talking manufactured answers, I'm not talking soundbites...And uh, not giving it any kind of slants.

* * * *

I don't think journalists should be anywhere allowed war (sic). I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what's happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you'd go to the theater and you'd see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for them. Now everyone's got an opinion and wants to downer-and down soldiers.

Oh gosh, it gets worse. I found the quote continued at The Raw Story:

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'Well, look at this atrocity,' well, you don't know the whole story behind it half the time. So I think the media should have no business in it.

Yeah, you tell 'em, Jingo Joe.

By the way, CNN and the Christian Science Monitor note that Wurzelbacher told far-right writer Laura Ingraham back in October that sure, he'd like to run for Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur's seat in 2010. Joe, not the tightest wrench in the kit, needs to note that Kaptur kept her seat a month later with 74% of the vote in 2008—typical of her performance since taking office in 1982.

The Monitor's commentator suggested Wurzelbacher should consider Ohio Senator George Voinovich's seat as well, a seat which is already Republican. In a country which has elected Sonny Bono, Jessie Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzenegger to major offices, anything at all is possible.

Hillary Clinton did not deserve to have the worst of sexist fears embodied in the metal nutcracker made in her image, nor the prurient coverage of her cleavage, nor... oh, the list goes on. Likewise, Sarah Palin has come in for some sexism she doesn't deserve either.

She doesn't deserve having a porn film made starring a look-alike. It's not flattery, it's degrading, to her and to all women in politics.

She doesn't deserve being the subject of stripper look-alike contests either. Ditto.

She doesn't deserve being called a "diva." If McCain's staff wants to call her an egotist, fine, say egotist. Call her a rogue, that's fine too. Call her a whack job - it's perfectly true. But don't call her a gendered insult such as "diva."

And, although this is not sexist, just vicious, don't hang her in effigy. It encourages sexists, whatever the original intent of the display was. It may be free speech, but it's really trashy, just as trashy as her winking and nodding and waving past the shouts of "Kill him!" at her rallies. It's hateful and it incites violence. Be an American and have the class to take it down. Because of sexism, some loon might take a shot at her, just for being a female candidate for the second-highest office in the country. Certainly plenty of loons felt that way about Hillary Clinton. Don't encourage them.

There. I'm through defending her, I hope. Picking on her $150K worth of clothes is not sexist. It's questioning why what should be a personal expense (like John Edwards' infamous haircuts) is a campaign expense. It's questioning if she's going to scamper off with the goods at the end of the campaign by either paying income tax on the $150K, or having the garments evaluated at Goodwill prices for "used clothes" and reimbursing the campaign for that, instead of the purchase prices. It's about questioning why the campaign is paying her makeup artist about $11,000 each week - more than double the campaign's senior foreign policy analyst. It's about asking whether the McCain's campaign costly focus on her looks is sexist.

Chiding her for continuing to hide from a real press conference is not sexist. It's a recognition that a person who can't handle the press corps is obviously unable to handle Congress, the United Nations, or any head of state — and a veep has to be able to handle all that on a moment's notice. No time to hang out by a creek memorizing speechlets, as she did prior to her "debate" with Biden.

Saying she's a drag on the ticket is not sexist. She is, and it's not because she's a woman, it's because she's the aforesaid whack job and because McCain's campaign put her on pitbull duty, doing the traditional attack-dog routine veep candidates always do. Rabid hatefulness rarely raises anyone's likability, regardless of gender; but the McCain campaign has decided that's her job.

Saying she's disloyal to McCain is not sexist. It's true. She's not the first veep or veep hopeful who has been disloyal to the top of their ticket, though she may be the first to be so blatant about it before the election is held. Saying she's ambitious for 2012 is not sexist. That, also, is true. Whether it's a legit ambition at this time, or ever, doesn't hinge on her gender so feel no compunction: just say it. McCain has been disloyal to women all his life. Perhaps it's karma if this time, this one beat him to it.

Questioning the birth of a full-term child seven months after her rushed, no-family-present wedding and now, her teen daughter's pre-marital pregnancy, is not sexist. It's a legitimate comparison of what she does versus what she says. It is not sexist to expose or discuss the hypocrisy of someone who wants to make every woman's reproductive life subject to government control, and who wants to deny public school teens access to realistic sex ed classes.

Questioning why McCain picked her in the first place and suggesting his notorious fondness for beauty queens is not sexist. That's a slap at McCain, not her, and he richly deserves it. Likewise the recent articles pointing out how the cruising pundits became enamored of her for her looks as well as her charm (nevermind any real qualifications): not sexist. Again, that's a slap at them for being beauty groupies, not at her for being beautiful.

Saying she has a pretty face is not sexist. We talk about how attractive male candidates are, or are not, as well. Saying she's nothing but a pretty face is sexist. She's so much more than that: a self-serving pragmatist who has tossed not one but two mentors over the side, who is married to a secessionist but runs on "Country First!", and who has a record of abusing every office she's held for personal benefit (including using threats of a Secret Service investigation to keep Alaska state investigators away from her re the Troopergate scandal). She's a whack job, all right, who needs to be asked if she considers oral contraceptives abortion, and whether she believes that the government should execute witches. And so on, and so on; so very much more than just a pretty face.

I can hardly believe I'm still posting on this, but here it is once more. Let's lead off on a manly note again, re Al Franken's hapless opponent up in Minnesota. Per TIME magazine:

[Norm] Coleman added to his woes by clumsily dodging questions about a report that a longtime donor had been buying suits and other clothing for him without it being reported on Senate disclosure forms. His spokesman's repeated refusal to give a direct yes or no answer to reporters' questions at one particularly tense press conference was so awkward that the video became a popular clip on political blogs. By the time Coleman finally gave a definitive response a few days later — "Nobody except my wife or me bought my suits" — the damage to his ebbing credibility had been done.

And the BBC explanation for Brits about what the money spent on Palin's campaign wardrobe really means:

[The $150K] adds up to more than double the average American household's yearly income. Amanda Sanders, a celebrity adviser at New York Image Consultants, told the BBC News website that to the average person the price would seem "astronomical."

"Maybe her look could have been reached with $50,000 - $150,000 seems a little over the top... especially when the American economy is in the toilet the way it is. That's, like, a new outfit every day from August to the election."

However, she praises Mrs Palin's new look as "very polished and sophisticated" apart from the odd fashion glitch such as knee-high boots, which Ms Sanders deems "inappropriate" for her role.

She speculates that the logic behind the makeover was to make Mrs Palin look less out of place beside the highly-groomed Mrs McCain and elegant Michelle Obama.

"The Republicans couldn't have her look so Middle America when Cindy looked so high-end. They wanted her to look polished and sophisticated like Cindy," she said. "She's not a 'soccer mom' any more - her new wardrobe says 'take me seriously.' They wanted her to look as 'Jackie O' as Obama's wife - I think that was important."

Much is being made of her costly clothes at the expense of the Republican National Committee. Hey, look: she's a beauty queen. And even if she were not, candidates routinely get "makeovers" (which are generally more of a "sharpen up" kind of thing) and so why the fuss? Yes, the cost of each garment is scandalously high and has echoes of Marie Antoinette in these difficult times, but I am more than happy to have the RNC buying mascara and suits for Palin, instead of air time for McCain. Spend! Spend!

The love of my life had heard the bit about "well, when this is over, we'll give the clothes to charity" and was ruminating on the possibilities of a really fierce Jon Stewart piece, following a homeless person wearing a $20K silk suit down the street back to the cardboard box where they are bunking. Spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt: "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign." Let's assume it's something like Upscale Resale and not Goodwill.

While we're at it, it's time to mention that the outfit Laura Bush wore to the Republican convention is estimated at $3,425 to $4,325 — and the Los Angeles Times estimated Cindy McCain's outfit (yes, just one outfit!) at between $299,100 and $313,100. Cake! Cake! Let those socialist proles all eat cake! To be fair, $280K of that was her earrings (yes, just her earrings), so knock that number down to $19,100 - $33,100. There were hefty figures for the ceramic watch and four-strand pearl necklace, too.

Most shocking in Politico's report is the news that the RNC spent $295 to dress up Palin's infant and over $4900 in men's accessories, presumably for husband Todd. Hey. Buying the whole family "McCain-Palin" t-shirts would be a legit use of RNC money. Buying baby clothes and cleaning up hubby, not... but again, hey, it's money they piddled away and can't spend on ads, so great!

This "Vote Democrat" fashion faux pas was brought to my attention by belle_marmotte, via zen_kitty, and I thank them both, and Newsweek too, which is where the photo originated.


Don't miss her glorious Betty Boop scarlet open-toed pumps from the tour of Juneau that Palin gave to two cruise ships' worth of Republican pundits back in 2007. No matter how they may have hurt, the investment of those few hours of pain is probably what put Palin on the long list McCain turned to when his desire for Joe Lieberman was nixed by his staff. McCain never met a beauty queen he didn't like; and apparently, some of these Republican eminences grisé had never met a beauty queen at all, much less one who was willing to make nice with them for a whole day.

I know there was a West Wing episode something like that...

Keith Olbermann reminded everyone tonight that the McCain campaign compared Obama to Paris Hilton. It was silly when they did it, and seems exponentially sillier now.