Women Be Shoppin.

Who knew business suits and glasses cost so much?

According to Reuters, the Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to dress Sarah Palin since she became the VP nominee.

The committee spent over $75,000 at Neiman Marcus, close to $50,000 at Saks, and the rest in miscellaneous purchases at other stores over the past couple of months.

I don't know why they have to spend so much money to make her look the same pretty much all the time...it's not like she's wearing anything extravagant, she looks like she just left work everyday.

Maybe they could have taken some of that money and hired somebody to show her how to get in touch with Fake America:

The Scramble to Ride Shotgun

Who's good enough to be Second Best?


The campaign train rolls into the campus of Washington University in St. Louis tomorrow with the long-awaited VP debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Gwen Ifill of PBS will ask the candidates questions pertaining to foreign and domestic issues over the 90-minute debate to see who is worthy of being the person we won't care about in a few months.

Questions are aplenty leading up to this square-off:

~Will Biden have to be gagged in order to stop him from contradicting Obama's campaign?

~Will the Republicans trot Sarah Palin out in a teacher outfit complete with a ruler and textbooks to distract the audience?

~Can Palin answer any question with a straight answer?

~Can Biden restrain himself from answering any question with a straight answer?

~Will either candidate know who shot JR?

You can count me tuned in.

Politician + Church = Ruh Roh

Apparently Sarah Palin didn't get TV way up in Alaska and hadn't heard of the Rev. Wright controversy, because this video of her being blessed by a radical preacher has surfaced.

The preacher is Bishop Thomas Muthee, a pastor at Wasilla Assembly of God church, where Palin has been a member for years.

In the clip, he asks Jesus to protect Palin from all forms of witchcraft and blesses her campaign for Governor. She later went on to win the seat in 2006.

This stuff practically writes itself.

You Make the Call

This is the first part of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin on CBS Evening News last night...


The second part of the interview is here:



It's not scheduled to air on television until tonight, so maybe you could make bets on what she says and win a little money later.

Peepology Pt. 2: Crouching Campaign, Hidden Palin

Sarah Palin on an Award Tour.

As the honeymoon between Sarah Palin and the press starts to end, outlets are starting to voice their frustration with the McCain campaign for strategically keeping Palin from answering real questions.

When MSNBC News asked Senior McCain Advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer why Palin has been protected from the media, she effectively ducked the question by talking about McCain's accessibility vs Obama's accessibility.

Pfotenhauer accused MSNBC of reaching, then she dropped this gem:

"Governor Palin has had two or three interviews, I think she's sitting down with Katie Couric today," she said. "We have her in front of tens of thousands of Americans every week, so she's getting plenty of exposure."

So apparently we'll have to wait until the Vice Presidential debates to see if she in fact does know anything about anything.

Sen. Hagel Earns Masters in Peepology

Do you see what he sees? I do!


Peepology: The study of seeing between the lines, aka peeping it.

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska proved distinguished himself as a man of keen peepology when he told the Omaha World-Herald that VP candidate Sarah Palin was not qualified to be president.

An excerpt from the interview:

"She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said in an interview published Thursday by the Omaha World-Herald. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

He also shot down the idea that she has foreign policy experience because of Alaska's proximity to Russia.

I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia,'" he said. "That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

Hagel will not get a Christmas card from the GOP this year.

McCain: Mayors, Governors not fit to lead

Why you gotta go and do that, HuffPost?

During a Republican debate last year, John McCain explained why he, as a long-time Senator, was more fit to lead than a lowly mayor like Rudy Giuliani or a simple governor like Mitt Romney. Take a look.



Of course, this wouldn't be important if Sarah Palin's experience as both a mayor and a governor hadn't become major Republican talking points in recent weeks.

New ad from John McCain proving Obama hates women and/or pigs

Here's a new ad from the McCain campaign, just released today.



OMG he called her a pig. Why would you call this beautiful Alaskan snowprincess a pig? What did she ever do to you, you elitist secret Muslim commie?

Here's the Obama quote with a little more context, from an Obama campaign stop in TERRORIST STRONGHOLD Lebanon (Virginia.)



Tough to say if this will have a big impact on Obama. The last time McCain came out with "the big guns" for an ad, it was the Tony Rezko spot. Remember that? Of course not, because it was forgotten about almost instantly. But media superstar Sarah Palin changes everything.

I wonder if Obama will accuse McCain of playing the sex card from the bottom of the deck.

And courtesy of Wonkette here is proof that John McCain also hates Sarah Palin.

Who Be Hatin Palin?

Sarah "The Northern Light" Palin.


Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin continues to be the hot topic in both campaigns...

Barack Obama formed a group of Alaskans today called the "Alaska Mythbusters" to challenge Palin's accomplishments and rhetoric.

Obama said the group "will set the record straight about whether Palin has what it takes to bring the change that’s needed in Washington, D.C."

What change actually means in this election is beyond me at this point.

Hill Dawg Scared of the Pit Bull?

Keep that pitbull away from me!

Hillary Clinton has found the desire to keep her hands clean after playing in the mud for seven months during her primary campaign versus Barack Obama.

At a town hall meeting in Florida, Hill Dawg stuck to the script, refusing to attack Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin directly.

The most she could muster was a half-hearted revision of her line during the Democratic National Convention.

"No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin."

This appearance further cements the fact that Hill Dawg plans on playing her part as a powerful Democrat in this election, but not much else going forward.

Obama will have to find somebody else to girlfight with Palin...hopefully it's on Pay Per View.

Vice Pitbull with Lipstick to give first big interview to . . .

Charlie Gibson?

Yes, according to the AP, ABC Nightly News anchor Charles Gibson will get the first one-on-one interview with Sarah Palin since she was named John McCain's running mate. Nothing against Gibson, but . . . really?

I didn't think it would be Campbell Brown, but the choice of Gibson is a little underwhelming. He's not exactly known for being the hardest hitting TV journalist (as The New Yorker so helpfully pointed out during the Democratic primaries,) and this comment from McCain campaign senior adviser and herpes-infected LA Clippers guard Rick Davis implies that they intentionally went with someone who wouldn't ask Palin too many tough questions.

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" he said on "Fox News Sunday" Sunday.

I understand there may be a legit concern over family questions, but most of the questions asked of Palin have involved real concerns, such as her record, her experience, the vetting process her stance on the issues and the suddenly-forgotten "Troopergate" (can we stop adding "gate" to any word to make a scandal? It's 2008 people,) story. Equating everyone in the news media with piranhas on the same day you announce her first interview with a softball pitcher speaks volumes in the lack of confidence the McCain campaign has in Palin to handle herself.

Pressure Busts Pipes

The Republican National Convection Oven


Like the old saying goes, if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen...

John McCain is already screaming for an end to the avalanche of questions surrounding Sarah Palin, the Vice Presidential candidate he announced just last Friday.

According to McCain's campaign officials, all of the criticism focused on Palin is a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for vice president."

Or people could be genuinely interested in an unknown entity that came out of left field to become a VP candidate over much more established and recognized names.

Nah, that couldn't be.

The Associated Press reported that Palin has several controversial items on her record, including:

*A private attorney is authorized to spend $95,000 of state money to defend her against accusations of abuse of power (allegedly she fired the Public Safety Commissioner because he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law).

*Palin sought pork-barrel projects for her city and state, contrary to her reformist image.

*Her husband once belonged to a fringe political group in Alaska, with some members supporting secession from the United States.

*She has acknowledged smoking marijuana in the past.

Somebody has alot of explaining to do.

Do You Know This Woman?

Because I'm not sure John McCain does. Between the ongoing ethics probe by the state of Alaska and the revelation that her unwed teenage daughter is pregnant, you have to wonder how strongly McCain vetted Sarah Palin. Yes, he has an image built around being unconventional and willing to shake things up, but an unknown governor with limited experience (after months of trying to make "experience" the center of his campaign) and some skeletons (in addition to the two other things, she may have been a member of an Alaskan separatist party) in her closet? Why?

The Old Grey Lady says that she wasn't even vetted like other prospective running mates were.
According to the Times' Elisabeth Bumller, McCain offered the job to Palin almost immediately after meeting her for the second time in his life on Thursday.

The details

Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Well that was to be expected. After all, you can only be so much of a "maverick." But why not someone like Mitt Romney or T Paw, who are better known? Romney has already had the national media go through his record with a fine tooth comb and both men offered much less risk. Apparently Rick Davis, McCain's campaign director and protege of Rove, was pushing for McCain to swing for the fences and shake things up, even though the others had been thoroughly vetted and Palin hadn't.

I'm not going to say this is a Thomas Eagleton (google it) situation yet, but McCain hurt his own campaign by trying too hard. No, Romney or T Paw wouldn't have made the earth stop less than 24 hours after Barack Obama's stadium status speech, and Lieberman or Ridge would have never flown with pro-life conservatives, but this is a classic case of thinking like a candidate instead of a president. In their effort to win the post-DNC press coverage, they may lose the campaign.