Via Josh Marshall:
If Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe had a life of its own, it would get a tax cut from a President Obama.
Vent.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
No one could have predicted…
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.
Fuck these fucking interesting times.
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
Everybody saw this coming.
Accountability, motherfuckers.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
Not all heroes wear capes.
The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
And her clothes are certainly ‘smarter’ than her.
Punchy
Reading over that Prop 8 change to the Cali Consty, I wish there was somewhere I could bet on "Which Amendment is most likely to be overturned/unamended in the next 5 years?"
I’d be betting the house on whatever Amendy # this thing becomes. Just an insane, unconscionable way to move the gays to other states.
Joshau Norton
I guess the Repugs have failed at race-baiting and terrorism-baiting. Now they’re trying a new technique – aneurysm-baiting.
For a group that "hates" socialism, they have more hands out more than than a mile of homeless people.
Comrade Jake
Spencer Ackerman has an article up over at The Washington Independent on a panicked Team McCain conference call this morning concerning Al Qaeda’s endorsement.
I’d link, but I’d prefer my post not sit in a [email protected]#$%& moderation queue for a stupid @#$%^& reason.
Joshau Norton
There’s got to be some kind of hitch to this whole prop 8 issue. You can’t amend the California Constitution with only a simple majority vote. I see a few years of law suits stretching down the road.
The simplest solution would be to remove all the special rights and tax breaks that go along with the term "marriage". That’s what the big to-do is really about, not necessarily the use of the word itself.
Tom Hilton
Live by the $400 haircut talking point, die by the $400 haircut talking point.
"I’ve had dresses with a higher IQ than you!"
Pastafarian
Ambinder notes:
"Dress, baby, dress!"
Tom Hilton
Unfortunately, you can. It sucks, but there it is. Early 20th century reformers thought it made sense, but in practice it’s a nightmare.
Zifnab
Am I the only one who – after 8 years of Al Gore earth tones and John Kerry windsurfing and George Bush $10,000 suits and John Edwards hair cuts – just doesn’t give a fuck about how much Sarah Palin spent on her wardrobe.
She’s running for fucking Vice President. Half her job is to stand around and look pretty (while the other half is – apparently – to see if she can spit venom in Obama’s eye from three states away). We’ve got an economic crisis, two unfinished wars, a health care epidemic, a $10 trillion debt, a failed Justice Department, a failed EPA, a limp dick Congress, blossoming racism, the continued threat of terrorist attacks, a crumbling infrastructure and that’s just to get warmed up.
If Sarah Palin spent $15 million on her collection of pants suits it still wouldn’t get her a dozen more votes in a deep red state. This isn’t even tax payer money – its coming straight from the RNC. Let Mrs Mooselini have her blouse and pearls. Why do I give a crap?
Comrade Jake
The real hand-wringing on the right over Palin’s wardrobe is not so much that this much RNC money was spent, but that the story is getting traction in the media.
And they are upset about that because it’s taking attention away from what they think is the biggest most awesomest Gaffe with a Capital G of the campaign, namely Biden’s remarks about Obama being tested.
Good times.
Comrade Jake
@Zifnab:
I’d be very surprised if lots of people on the left are outraged about the money being spent. We’re not discussing it because we’re outraged, we’re discussing it because it’s a fucking riot.
It puts a gigantic microscope on the hypocrisy of the McCain/Palin "Joe The Plumber" campaign. It is full of win.
uila
Everybody just relax, she’ll be donating the clothes to charity when it’s all over. I look forward to seeing all the homeless women of DC bundled up in red Chanel jackets this winter.
Eric U.
what sort of brilliant political mind has a phone conference about al Quada’s endorsement of McCain. I hate to throw them a lifeline, but the whole idea that they would endorse either of these two candidates, and American voters should care, is laughable. And to score extra stupid points, they brought up the fact that Obama was endorsed by Hamas, which they made a big fuss over at the time. The only thing about the AQ endorsement that might hurt is that whoever wrote it made a lot of sense — McCain really would make their mission a lot easier.
Margarita
I look forward to seeing all the homeless women of DC bundled up in red Chanel jackets this winter.
Let them eat Prada.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
Some religious folks are saying Tampa Bay’s baseball success is due to, wait for it, dropping the word Devil from their name.
Zuzu's Petals
@Joshau Norton:
Yep, the California Constitution can be amended by a majority vote:
I agree with whoever said that no matter who wins, we’re gonna see people trying to change it on the ballot for years to come.
Punchy
I agree with Zif. Let the entire staff at the RNC give Palin pearl necklaces.
cleek
AP O:44 M:43
WTF?
e_majorana
Gee, I never thought I’d say this but I’m sorry we don’t have "Dick Nixon to kick around anymore".
Whatever happened to the "good Republican cloth coat"?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@uila:
You beat me to that one. I wonder if your average wingnut realizes just how deep they’ve crawled down the Rabbit Hole of Stupid these days. They have become the Wrong Way party in every breath they make and every step they take. I look forward to their Congress Critter leaders holding press a conference on Nov. 5 to let us know their plan of action on how to get America going again with conservative principles, with the sting of dems in the WH, a filibuster proof Senate majority and a Blue Dog proof majority in the house. I know those numbers are a little premature, but they are not an outrageous fantasy.
NonyNony
@Comrade Jake:
Not only is it a laugh riot because of the hypocrisy, it’s also a laugh riot because that $150K is money from party donors to the RNC. The RNC basically handed over money that was given to them to get candidates elected in order for Palin to get an image makeover.
Seeing Republicans waste their own money always makes me laugh these days. It’s when they waste my money that I get angry. Personally, I wish they’d sunk $300K or more into Palin’s new look – every dollar spent on new duds for Palin is one less dollar spent on robocalls and teevee ads after all.
greynoldsct00
And we have to listen to the talking heads yammer about it. I heard that MSNBC spent about a half hour this morning discussing this critical issue
Face
@cleek: Explanation does not jive. Article says that McCain’s debate performance was good, and it "brought home the base". Yet his "43%" is consistent in nearly every other poll. Only real difference is Obama’s low 44%. This wouldn’t drop just because McCain debated well. I smell an outlier. Outliar?
Dennis - SGMM
There’s another bright side to the Palin wardrobe mishap. The RNC spent $150,000 to clothe her for fifty days’ worth of campaigning. If Palin runs in 2012, the now two year campaign cycle means that the RNC will have to shell out at least $2,190,000 just for her clothes.
tripletee
Things you could buy with $150,000:
2 – months worth of clothing for Sarah Palin and family
100 – Hart Schaffner Marx suits for Barack Obama ($1,500 each)
125 – years worth of back taxes for Joe the Plumber ($1,200)
288 – pairs of imported Italian loafers for John McCain ($520/pair)
375 – haircuts for John Edwards ($400 each)
1,000 – Target dresses for Michele Obama to wear on The View ($148 each)
8,333 – pounds of arugula ($18/pound)
????? – resolings of Barack Obama’s shoes ($ – ????)
Man, I hate those liberal elitists.
Shinobi
Can you even imagine the conversation we’d be having if Joe Biden spent HALF of that on suits? (And suits are expensive!!)
I think it would go something like "Faggot faggot, faggot faggot….. Communist."
Jeff
via Sully: Polls are wrong and McCain will win because the polling companies are based in blue states.
I cannot tell if this is a wingnut with no purpose or if he is doing this to advance the idea that liberals are stealing the election.
Tsulagi
Okay, not only a $150k couture expenditure for the month of September, but also $13k in makeup to complete that “real America” look. Easily surpassing McCain’s $8k makeup expense that month to look lovely for the toe-tapping base. Would hate to see their cappuccino bills.
Martin
I don’t get the outrage either, especially as she’s shopping at such main-street Wasila outlets as Saks and Neiman Markus. If she were doing something that could be construed as elitist, I might have a different opinion.
Dork
@cleek: Cleek, something doesn’t jive.
Click on US Elections and look at their Oct. 22 results.
Soylent Green
Well doggone it, that’s as bad as eating picante sauce made in New York City!
gbear
Man, I dig. That explanation is squaresville. It doesn’t jibe either.
Dennis - SGMM
Speaking as an Unreal American (Left Coast) I have to say that my opinion of Palin was changed by the wardrobe business. Before, I thought that she was just a shallow, ignorant, zealot. Now I see her as a shallow, ignorant, greedy, narcissistic, zealot.
jake 4 that 1
In order to give "The 150K to dress the RealAmerican(TM) Palin brood," story a temporary rest:
McPOW can’t believe people don’t like his new Soulmate and Partner.
gbear
Yea, but they make it up in the money they save on dry cleaning.
Jeff
@cleek: 538 discusses related topic today. I think it has to do with how "likely voters" are counted. Also, there are some interesting statistics discussed in the comments.
Comrade Jake
@Eric U.:
This really can’t be emphasized enough, IMO. I wish we could have a discussion along these lines in a debate, anything. There’s pretty much been no discussion that’s penetrated the public discourse as to just how much we fell for the fucking trap by invading Iraq. It’s like OBL is just laughing at us, pointing at the DJIA and saying "Scoreboard, bitches."
_PK_
Working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week it would take a lettuce picker 300 days to make $150K.
Delia
Live by the fake outrage; die by the fake outrage. These are the people who perfected the art of turning John Edwards’ $400 haircut into a multi-year story. Palin’s only claim to qualification, other than being able to see Russia from the shoreline if she looks real hard, is that she’s a regular PTA, hockey-mom, Joe-six-pack kinda gal who understands regular old red-blooded Amurricans the way those well-educated types just can’t. And when it turns out she’s getting more in free clothes and make-up than most of her target voters can spend on a house, well, it just seems like a pretty good story to me.
Oh, and to rub it in a little more, this just in: her personal shopper is the head of McCain’s dirty robocall firm.
flyerhawk
Anyone see Rick Moran’s latest article…
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/10/22/the-gop-and-the-dead-parrot-scenario/
Dennis - SGMM
McCain just shat in Joe Lieberman’s face. Or does Weepin’ Joe like that kind of work?* And I would advise McCain against going hunting with Dick Cheney any time soon.
*Not that I have a low opinion of the syphilitic-piss-drinking, goat-molesting, dead-pig-fellating, backstabbing, Lieberman.
Calouste
@jake 4 that 1:
I wonder what Johnny’s good friend Joe L. has to say about that, being called less qualified than someone who is outsmarted by her wardrobe.
Martin
Really? More qualified than Cheney? She must have even less moral foundation than I realized.
Delia
Anybody think we’re snarky? We don’t come close to ex-McCain adviser Mike Murphy. Don’t know if he’s clinging to his guns, religion and booze, but he does seem to feeling a tad bitter.
Dennis - SGMM
@Delia:
LOL!
Comrade Jake
@Delia:
I’m sure there are lots of good reasons not to like Murphy, but I find him to be a very likable guy most of the time I’ve seen him on the teevee. He seems to actually, you know, be able to think critically. I wonder where McCain would be these days if Murphy was still a main adviser.
DougJ
I don’t care about this story at all.
Don’t get me wrong — liberal blogs are smart to promote it and the media is duty-bound (as CNN’s Bernie Shaw would say) to cover it after they went all haircut, all-the-time on Edwards, but really, who gives a fuck? The McCain campaign is spending $300 million total (including the join IEs with the RNC), much or most of it spent on robocalls about Bill Ayers, ads about Britney Spears, and voter suppression efforts. In that context, isn’t 150K making their veep look good a fairly reasonable expenditure?
tripletee
@Dennis – SGMM:
Jesus, man, that’s completely unfair. Syphilitic piss drinkers, goat molesters (hi, myiq2!) and pig necrophiliacs aren’t that bad.
Comrade Jake
@DougJ:
I hope it’s closer to a consolation prize for the good Governor than a good investment for the RNC.
Still, even with lots of comments about this story here, do you get the impression that any of us "care" about it? I only care because it exposes them as hypocrites. The rest is gravy.
tripletee
@DougJ:
I don’t either, really, but after years of "$400 haircuts while eating arugula and Iranian caviar!" bullshit, it sure is fun to watch.
Comrade Jake
Courtesy of Sully:
"McCain feels with his heart, but he thinks with his base. And when he picked Sarah Palin, he told the United States of America to go fuck itself," – Leon Wieseltier, TNR.
Something like that.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Comrade Jake:
I agree with Comrade Jake. Its time to kick that final nail into the coffin.
jake 4 that 1
RealAmerican(TM) Men(R) just love to shop for ladies. And men. And girls. Even little girls…
Ugg. Check his text messaging records.
J. Maynard Gelinas
Public Bathroom FAIL:
http://daduh.org/node/140
DougJ
Yeah, I agree.
But we’d really be better off if we didn’t have any of this kind of bullshit as part of our discourse.
DougJ
Still, even with lots of comments about this story here, do you get the impression that any of us "care" about it?
No, I don’t. I was just adding that I didn’t, not criticizing anyone.
jake 4 that 1
@DougJ: In this context spending 150K on gasoline, dousing the Str8Talk Xpress (Land & Air) and RNC HQ, setting it on fire, loading the video of the entire crime onto teh UToobs and claiming it was Afrocentric Radical Booga-Booga Terrists who happened to look exactly like John McPOW and pals would make sense. The entire campaign has moved beyond Wookies on Endor and become Yetis at Neiman Marcus.
IT. DOES NOT. MAKE. SENSE.
Soylent Green
The key word is "recently," meaning "starting with the day after nobody outside of Alaska ever heard of her."
The Moar You Know
Yes. Yes, he does.
demimondian
@DougJ: I care about this story, just as I cared about the "how many houses" story. Each story provides a crisp and clear example of true narratives about the candidates and the party which they represent.
First, about McCain. There’s every reason that Sarah Palin needed to look nice on screen — not least of all because that’s what she was hired to do. More than that, if she was to stand next to Cindy McCain, who was decked out in $313K worth of bling during the Senator’s acceptance speech, then they needed to upgrade her wardrobe.
The point is, though, that the Republican Party didn’t realize that Josie the Plumber’s Wife doesn’t spend that kind of money on clothes. Then again, she typically knows exactly how many houses she holds mortgages on.
Second, about Palin. This gives an easily-understood example of her shady finances. She’s willing to "take forbidden gifts" just to satisfy her own desires, without thinking about the consequences, whether those gifts were in Alaska or Minnesota. She’s corrupt — and this is a clear example of that.
By itself, the story is not at all interesting, I agree. In context, it has exactly the same kind of heft that the Mark Foley story did.
DougJ
By itself, the story is not at all interesting, I agree. In context, it has exactly the same kind of heft that the Mark Foley story did.
Fair enough.
Soylent Green
Hilarious Jon Swift today on pro-America vs. anti-America.
Fulcanelli
@tripletee: Awesome Win!
Eric S
Here in Chicago it has been a bit of news that the Tribune endorsed Obama. The first time in their history they’ve ever endorsed a Democratic candidate for president. Today I discovered the underlying conspiracy.
Their weather page is "Powered by the Weather Underground." It’s in the small print but it is just above the zip code search.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
They said they will give them all to charity?
1. Does that mean they are planning on losing? Cause I’d think that she’s gonna need those fancy suits to run the Senate. Not so necessary as Gov of Alaska.
2. Is that their example of ‘spreading the wealth’? How socialist of her/them.
necros
Those elitist snobs the Obamas talk about their commie pinko socialist Bolshevik clothing budget. Michelle Obama, being her typical radical America-hating self, brags about her $30 Gap dress. They obviously have nothing in common with hard working real Americans — white Americans.
jcricket
I agree. I care about this story because narrative matters. The press matters. And without "playing the game" (in some fashion) Democrats will continue to lose. "High minded" non-partisanship is not a goal I aspire to.
Crushing Republicans and enacting liberal reforms is. So since Republicans have won (in many cases) for 30 years painting Democrats as effete, out-of-touch, elitist snobs, I’m happy to paint Republicans with whatever brush I can.
I don’t want to replicate right-wing talk radio garbage culture, but I have no problem using what the Republicans actually do and spoon-feeding the media a narrative (McCain doesn’t know how many houses he has? Palin spent $150k on clothes in a month? Who’s the elitist) that at least blunts the courting of the media the right does.
Ever watch a reality TV show? There’s always someone who says, "I just realized this is a game and I have to play it or I will lose". Democrats are just now that person.
jibeaux
I’m not much for math, but isn’t that $50/hr.?
jcricket
Si. Show me the lettuce picker making $50/hour.
BTW – I once read an expose in the NY Times magazine about the slaughterhouse industry. You couldn’t get me to do that for $100/hour. Back breaking work, bone-chilling cold/ankle deep bloody water, repetitive stress injuries galore, dangerous knives everywhere, and a caste system (the lower class whites are managers > the lower class blacks who get the ‘best’ jobs in the house > the illegal immigrant hispanics who get the ‘worst’ jobs).
Yeesh.
dr. luba
@jibeaux:
As to the lettuce picking…..it has to do with a campaign stop John McCain made in Michigan.
Dickie Moe
How about this one:
"If Joe Biden was John McCain’s running mate, he’d be known universally as the second biggest idiot on Earth. Behind anyone seriously considering voting for Barak Obama."
Dickie Moe
Holy crap, what a bunch of morons here.
Just reading the comments of you nitwits.. Idiotic.