Extreme Blame-Over Erupts Around Palin's Spree

The Sarah Palin Extreme Makeover-Gate story has entered a new phase today, with supporters of Sarah Palin increasingly eager to dress someone else up in the blame for the $150,000.00 miscue. Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes actually called out a specific McCain staffer, Nicolle Wallace. Nice touch, blame the girl. (From Politico)

"The person who went and bought the clothes and, as I understand it put the clothes on her credit card, went to Saks and Neiman Marcus...the staffer who did that has been a coward," he said, for failing to take responsibility for the distraction, and alllowing Palin to take the hit.

He then said was talking about McCain advisor Nicolle Wallace, who has been a focus of Palin's admirers' ire.

Wallace fired back in an email to me that Barnes is "incorrect" that she charged the clothes to her card, and "incorrect that I went to any stores."

Meanwhile, in her latest effort to save the McCain campaign, Ashley Todd now claims that a 6ft 4in black man bought the clothes, and carved a Burberry logo on her cheek.

I've got to side with Wallace here. As we noted last week, it was upstanding robo-caller Jeff Larson whose name appears in the RNC's reports for the purchases. The effort to blame Wallace smacks of sexism. Here's Barnes on Fox, followed by a brief recap of the story so far.



The story first broke a week ago, when Politico noticed some odd expenses embedded in the RNC's FEC filings. The RNC, records showed, had purchased over $150,000.00 in clothing and accessories in September for VP nominee Sarah Palin.

In a slow, steady rollout, the revelations kept coming, and kept the story alive in the 24 hour news cycle. First, there was the personal shopper, then the hair & makeup, the vocal coach, the denial by Palin, the ire of the donors, and now this.

None of this has been helpful to the campaign, puncturing McCain and Palin's Joe the Six-Packin' Plumber narrative, and this latest brouhaha only serves to give the story new legs.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 9pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.