Ya can dress her up but why would they let her out?

I think Palin should spend some money on some better lipstick.

Hence going to charity after the election.

Sam Stein writes that the timing is awful: As the "Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class," it's revealed that Palin "received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years."

The End of 'Larry the Cable Guy Politics'

Larry the Cable Guy isn't, you know, an actual cable guy. The reality is that he's not a blue collar redneck either. The hooplehead accent is fake, and his name isn't Larry. He's just a normal stand-up comic named Dan Whitney who, before the ascension of George W. Bush and redneck chic in America, spoke in a non-specific American accent and wore non-redneck clothing.

But a lot of people believe Larry is genuine. Why wouldn't they? When he appears in a movie, he's credited as "Larry the Cable Guy," and, in some sort of freaky Mark Wahlberg playing Eddie Adams playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers meta-performance, Dan Whitney actually plays Larry the Cable Guy playing various movie character roles. For example, in Witless Protection (get it?), Dan Whitney plays Larry the Cable Guy playing Deputy Larry Stalder. Now sure, he's made a nice career for himself and I don't mean to begrudge him for his success, but it's all pretty creepy, no?

Fortunately for America, Larry or Dan or whoever isn't running for president. At least, not this time.

Be it Larry the Cable Guy or his Ohio cousin, Joe the Plumber, or their political and spiritual leader, Bushie the Commander Guy, or their newly discovered co-star Sarah the Hockey Mom, it should be obvious to anyone watching that the Republicans have been engaging in a seemingly endless game of dress up, and pretending to be something they're clearly not.

Larry the Cable Guy Politics.

As we've all observed today with the news of Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe -- purchased, I hasten to underscore, from stores based in the "anti-American" areas of the nation -- the Republican "Joe Sixpack" flimflam appears to be crashing and burning faster than McCain's poll numbers.

For the last eight years, we've observed in shocked horror as President Bush -- this elite child of limitless family wealth -- this pampered, bubble-boy cheerleader -- marched around the world stage pretending to be some kind of ****-kicking cowpoke. His so-called Texas ranch, a strategically-timed purchase just prior to the launch of his 2000 presidential campaign, isn't any more authentically "cowboy" than the invisible six-shooters he pretends to wear on his gigantic belt, making his arms dangle outwards in some sort of ridiculous Yosemite Sam "Draw!" pose. The Crawford ranch is, in fact, a multi-million-dollar estate on which he once shared a 16 mile bike ride with Lance Armstrong without ever leaving the boundaries of his property.

Meanwhile, most of us own houses that cost less than two months worth of Sarah Palin outfits. Lee Stranahan posted another spot-on video today in which he notes that $150,000 is enough to buy 50 snowmachines, 2,500 hockey sticks and over 20,000 six-packs. It's more money, Lee reports, than the average American family spends on clothes over a span of 80 years.

This only serves to further amplify the truth that John McCain and the neocons selected Sarah Palin purely for superficial reasons. To play a part. To satisfy a perceived optics gap. And yet McCain and the Republicans are somehow outraged when their superficiality is finally revealed to the public? That's hilarious, especially considering how, over and over and over again, these very same white Republican men have gone around with very televised and very obvious (and, in the case of Limbaugh, artificially induced) pants tents whenever Palin winks and shrieks out a phony, "You betcha!" Rich Lowry, I'm looking at you.

Then there's Senator McCain himself who has repeatedly scammed American voters by accusing Senator Obama of being an elitist. In Senator McCain's screwy world, the "elitist" is a minority son of a single mother who worked his way through school and routinely re-soles his shoes rather than buying new ones.

In the same cackling breath, Senator McCain pretends to understand the economic hardships of the dwindling American middle class while obnoxiously hissing, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" At this point, I imagine voters are seriously wondering who the hell John McCain really is. Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain, helped me answer this question earlier today:

The McCains are real salt of the Earth folks. Twelve cars, eleven houses, 520-buck loafers, Cindy McCain's 300k RNC outfit especially made to pal around with domestic financial terrorists... you know average American kinda stuff.

Toss in Senator McCain's $8,500-a-month Hollywood makeup artist, and the fake "man of the people" maverick scam totally disintegrates. Underneath we find a spasmodic, filthy rich, Mr. Magoo -- a typical Bush Republican who embraces the same kind of divisive ratfuckery we've endured for too many years from the likes of Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, Richard Nixon (McCain has shamefully resurrected the Southern Strategy) and, most disturbingly, the politics of Joe McCarthy.

Yet last night, there was a convergence of news that, to me, helped to illustrate -- if not outright signal --an end to the dominance of this kind of chicanery.

There was Republican Congressman Robin Hayes who blurted out another nearsighted Republican lie about how liberals hate America. He immediately denied saying any such thing -- that is, until reporters discovered actual recordings of the quote. Duh. Anyway, you'll notice that Hayes used the Larry the Cable Guy catchphrase "git 'er done!" and its apparent derivation "got 'er did!" Yep. A member of your United States Congress. At the same time, news was breaking about Palin's ludicrous wardrobe bill. And then, on top of all of that, they announced the results of the latest NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll showing the McCain campaign falling desperately behind in just about every polling category. Among other indicators, Sarah Palin, it turns out, is even less popular than George W. Bush.

In a broad-stroke sense, it felt as if Americans were finally beginning to vocally reject this decade of "git 'er done" sophistry and fallacious Republican optics. It felt really damn good.

Now, granted, this election is far from over and the McCain-Palin campaign could still eke out a victory (don't take anything for granted!), but the light at the end of this dark ride is growing increasingly brighter by the day. Given the McCarthyism-meets-Nixonian tactics of the last week or two, it's not a moment too soon. The end of Larry the Cable Guy Politics as we know it -- this transparent redneck hustle the Republicans have injected into our lives every day -- appears to be receding into history.

We can only hope that in its place will emerge a rebirth of American intelligence, pragmatism, thoughtfulness and wisdom. After too many years of painted-on knee-jerk superficiality -- be it in the White House or talk radio or on the FOX News Channel (where blonde is the new smart) -- our national condition is starving for a return to reason and reality.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-end-of-larry-the-cabl_b_136977.html

Palin stumped when asked to explain her preconditions for meeting foreign leaders.»

Gov. Sarah Palin has attacked Sen. Barack Obama for being “so off base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met.” When asked by NBC’s Brian Williams what are some of those preconditions she envisions, Palin was stumped:

WILLIAMS: Governor Palin, yesterday you tied this notion of an early test to the new president. Would this notion of precondition "

PALIN: Right.

WILLIAMS: " that you both have been hammering the Obama campaign on. What " first of all, what in your mind is a precondition?

PALIN: You have to have some diplomatic strategy going into a meeting with someone like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il, one of these dictators that would seek to destroy America or her allies. It is so naive and so dangerous for a presidential candidate to just proclaim that they would be willing to sit down with a" a leader like Ahmadinejad and just talk about the problems, the issues that are facing them. So that " that’s " that’s some ill-preparedness right there.

Watch it:

Ilan Goldenberg offers this tutorial: “What Palin is describing is what would be called preparation, not preconditions. Just to be clear. Not negotiating until preconditions are met means not starting your negotiating until the other side has met some kind of condition you imposed. ”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/22/palin-preconditions/

Palin derides ‘elites,’ but then says she rejects labels.»

During an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams which aired tonight, Gov. Sarah Palin offered two contradictory statements in the span of just a few minutes. When asked who is “an elite,” Palin answered: “Oh, I guess just people who think they’re better than anyone else.” Moments later, here’s how Palin responded when asked if she’s a “feminist”:

I’m not gonna label myself. And I think that’s what annoys a lot of Americans " especially in a political campaign " is to start trying to label different parts of America, different backgrounds.

Palin Was A Feminist Before She Wasn’t

Yesterday in her interview with NBC, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) told NBC’s Brian Williams that she rejected the “label” of being called a feminist:

WILLIAMS: Governor, are you a feminist?

PALIN: I’m not going to label myself anything, Brian. And I think that’s what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign, is to start trying to label different parts of America, different backgrounds, different " I’m not going to put a label on myself.

But in the past, Palin has been more than willing to tout her feminist credentials. From a Sept. 30 interview with CBS’s Katie Couric:

COURIC: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

PALIN: I do. A feminist who believes in equal rights.

Palin then went on to talk about her upbringing " “I’ve been brought up in a family where gender hasn’t been an issue” " and how her feminist “started with that.”

Watch the two appearances:

So basically, Palin isn’t willing to call herself a feminist when in the room with two men (Williams and McCain) but is more than happy to do so when talking with another woman (Couric). As Rachel Maddow commented on her MSNBC show yesterday, “Why was that horrible label OK last month, but now it’s horrible? Has it been a bad month for labels, Sarah the maverick?”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/palin-feminist/

Palin inadvertently criticizes herself for supporting Bridge to Nowhere.»

In her first policy address, which covered special needs children, Gov. Sarah Palin claimed today that Congress spends “some $18 billions on earmarks for their political pet projects.” Palin then slammed the “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark, which, ironically, she strongly supported:

Congress spends some $18 billions on earmarks for their political pet projects. And that right there is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA. … You guys have heard some of the examples of where those dollars go. You’ve heard about the bridges, and you’ve heard about some of these pet projects that really don’t make a lot of sense.

Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/palin-earmarks-special-speech/

According to Los Angeles Times, Gov. Sarah Palin’s “approach to government was business as usual.” One quarter of state posts went to campaign donors or relatives " “without regard to qualifications.” Leading donors “received state-subsidized industrial development loans” and an ethics complaint is pending against Palin “for allegedly helping another donor and fundraiser land a state job.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/24/thinkfast-october-24-2008/

Who would have thought? Palin's highest paid staffer is, you wouldn't have guessed it, Sarah Palin's Make-up Artist. Sarah Palin's make-up artist earns more in two weeks than some in a year. How will the Republican Party deal with this new revelation? I for one, am flabbergasted that the Republican Party doesn't sense these hot-button issues in advance. Wouldn't they realize how the public might react to such a tidbit?

An article in the Huffington post had me wondering if I didn't pick the right job. A report revealed that Sarah Palin's makeup stylist cost $22,800. And that is just for the first two weeks of October. Apparently they paid her more than any other McCain staffer.

I don't see anything wrong political candidates making the most of themselves and having it be charged to their campaign, after all, it is like a business expense. However, I think they can go overboard and they have in the case of Palin.