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Will we ever stop talking about Sarah Palin's clothes? The latest news on her wardrobe comes from Palin herself. Ethics disclosure forms recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act contained this oddity: $300 in clothes and footwear from ... CNBC.

Bidentity Crisis: Where's Joe? By: Carol E. Lee November 27, 2008 09:48 PM EST CHICAGO — More than three weeks into the transition, and Vice-president elect Joe Biden generates less buzz than the non-existent first puppy. The vice president-elect has not spoken publicly since the election, and was at Barack Obama's side just once this week as the president-elect delivered a series of grim news conferences on the economy. Obama instead appears to be at the center of his longtime Chicago circle. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and senior adviser David Axelrod were each at two of Obama's press...

For Biden, No Portfolio but the Role of a Counselor By HELENE COOPER WASHINGTON — The day before Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s birthday last week, Barack Obama surprised him after lunch with candlelighted cupcakes. Within hours, the photograph of the president-elect and his running mate, smiling over the dessert, was on the evening news. The photograph, circulated by Mr. Obama’s office, was meant to project unity, confidence and camaraderie. But while Mr. Obama has moved quickly to assemble his White House staff and the beginnings of a cabinet, he is lagging behind even the chronically late President Bill Clinton in...

We have gone through the first round of internal recriminations with the recent excoriation of Governor Palin by those “unnamed” McCain staffers. But, as we all know, Gov. Palin was the subject of heated debate even among Republicans long before the election. One common complaint was that she was the "worst" VP candidate pick "ever." But, was she really? A look at recent history can only serve to deflate that ridiculous claim. There have been far worse picks than Gov. Palin and only the extremely emotional state of mind that this past election ginned up could obscure the historical record....

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Nov. 22) - Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor. Oprah wants her. So do Letterman and Leno. The failed Republican vice presidential candidate crunched state budget numbers this past week in her 17th-floor office as tumbling oil prices hit Alaska's revenues. Her staff, meanwhile, fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old Palin for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy. Agents from the William Morris Agency and elsewhere, have come knocking. There even has...

What a powerful letter -- which I am pleased to share with Salon readers. Yes, let us not forget the tragic series of dubious political judgments that led the U.S. to lurch into Southeast Asia after the French had prudently packed up and left. The debacle of the Vietnam War still haunts American politics and has produced deep partisan fissures that have never healed. However, I would appeal to you and to all Americans to acknowledge that the preservation of our liberties ultimately depends on the enormous dedication and self-sacrifice of our military men and women. I am very concerned...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — What does an accomplished man of the world get for his 66th birthday?</p> <p>Well, President-elect Barack Obama already gave Joe Biden the vice presidency. So, for his birthday, Obama gave Biden two ball caps and a rendition of the birthday song.</p>

Sarah Palin to speak at CPAC Just got off the phone with Lisa DePasquale, director of the Conservative Political Action Conference, who tells me that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is confirmed as a speaker at CPAC 2009, Feb. 26-28 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

She failed to save John McCain from presidential election doom, but Sarah Palin, the Republican senator’s controversial running mate, may yet emerge as the saviour of the American publishing industry. ... At a sombre meeting of Republican governors later in the week, Palin’s megawatt celebrity far outshone her more experienced colleagues. Frank Luntz, a prominent Republican consultant, called her a “rock star”, but Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, warned that she would be only “one of the voices” leading the party forward. Yet there are already signs that conservative Republicans, thrilled by Palin’s right-wing views, are manoeuvring to keep...

The election is over, but quite clearly the Palin Derangement Syndrome suffered by many in the mainstream media isn't. This morning's CNN Reliable Sources was typical. Joining host Howard Kurtz to discuss Sarah Palin were Beth Fouhy, an Associated Press political reporter, Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, and Julie Mason, the Washington Examiner's White House correspondent. Mason opined: "I don't think she helped herself at all this past week. I think she actually probably made it worse." To Zurawik, the Alaska governor's recent interview with NBC's Matt Lauer "shows you how in a way, deviously clever Palin is in...

Joe Biden: The Already Invisible Man November 15, 5:45 PM by Tony Campbell, Politics Examiner In another stroke of the change we can expect, it seems that the role of Vice-President in the Obama administration may only consist of being a sounding board for the President, unlike the dominant policy role that Dick Cheney possessed over the last eight years. During the campaign, we heard that Joe Biden was on the ticket to provide experience in leadership regarding foreign policy. Now, it seems that President-elect Obama may choose Senator Hillary Clinton for the top post at the Department of State....

US Rebublican Sarah Palin wooed for $11m book deal Tony Allen-Mills in New York The Australian November 17, 2008 12:01am SHE failed to save John McCain from presidential election doom, but Sarah Palin, the losing Republican senator's controversial running mate, may yet emerge as an unlikely saviour of the US publishing industry. Literary agents are queueing to sign Ms Palin to a book deal that could earn her up to $US7million ($10.8 million), The Australian reports. With Barack Obama's election victory expected to generate dozens of books from politicians, strategists and journalists - and with another shelfload of memoirs expected...

“Nobody ever defended anything successfully; there is only attack and attack and attack some more.” — General George S. Patton For all the tacky talk in media circles, where folks have extremely over-inflated opinions of themselves, one would think that Sarah Palin was the sole arbiter of Republican defeat this year. What a pile of preposterous poppycock! From the beginning of ‘08, the accepted wisdom was that no matter whom the Democrats nominated, they would deliver to the Republicans an ignominious defeat. But this year’s defeat was anything but the complete rout it was supposed to be. And the person...

What is it about CNN that they have to distort things that Governor Sarah Palin has said in interviews? This time, CNN even distorted what she said in an interview one of its own correspondents conducted. On CNN's Political Ticker Blog on November 11, CNN had this absurd headline:Palin in Obama's administration? And followed that up with a paragraph that materially misstated what she told their own commentator, Wolf Blitzer. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Wednesday she would be honored to help out President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with...

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is scheduled to meet Thursday with Dick Cheney, whom he has said is probably "the most dangerous vice president we've had" in U.S. history. The session is scheduled to take place late in the afternoon at the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory. The two men are to be joined by their wives, Jill Biden and Lynne Cheney. In addition to the meeting, the vice president-elect and his wife are scheduled to take a tour of their new digs. Biden, a 35-year Senate veteran with a deep knowledge of foreign policy, has said he expects...

To my fellow bloggers: The next time you get an e-mail from someone saying it’s time to organize a conservative netroots, bear in mind that it’s these morons, by and large, whom that person wants you to support. The same people who couldn’t muster a judgment on the bailout independent of Nancy Pelosi being a big meanie, the same people who can’t organize a press conference without having it descend into backbiting and recriminations. Some Republican governors tell CNN they were not particularly happy with the way the Republican Governors Association press conference was executed Thursday, saying that they agreed...

As she seeks to recover politically from her failed election bid on Senator John McCain’s ticket, the big question for Gov. Sarah Palin has been whether her backers would remain enthusiastic over the long run. As it turns out, over the past few days, about 1,000 people have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Our Country Deserves Better, a political action committee that is planning a pro-Palin advertisement later this month. “We thought it would be appropriate to have the thank-you ad run around Thanksgiving,” said Joe Wiezbicki, the PAC’s coordinator. The group expects to shoot on Monday and...

LOS ANGELES – John McCain said Tuesday that Sarah Palin did not damage his presidential bid, and he dismissed as typical campaign sniping anonymous criticism aimed at her following their crushing defeat. "I'm so proud of her and I'm very grateful she agreed to run with me. She inspired people, she still does," McCain told Jay Leno during an "Tonight Show" interview taped for broadcast Tuesday night. "I couldn't be happier with Sarah Palin." Asked by Leno about griping about Palin from unidentified McCain operatives in the days following the election, the Arizona senator said, "These things happen in campaigns.

The '08 presidential election is now in the history books and the republican ticket lost it rather convincingly. As soon as it became obvious, John McCain did the honorable thing and conceded. It deteriorated rapidly from there. Finger pointing in a situation like this is inevitable, but this has become as laughable as the dim msm coverage of the campaign itself. Except for the target, Gov. Sarah Palin.

Last night, CNN's Campbell Brown had this to say about the attacks on Sarah Palin: "I find it so stunning that the very people who introduced us to Sarah Palin, who told us she would make a great Vice President, have now turned on her with a vengeance..." Yes, that does sound "stunning." So stunning, in fact, that it is unbelievable. ... How do I know the attacks on Palin are a calculated preemptive strike from supporters of a potential 2012 Palin foe -- not from a McCain loyalist? Aside from my personal knowledge that some of this stuff (not...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has emerged as one of the hottest names in national Republican circles since John McCain's defeat last week, was never vetted as a vice presidential pick, according to sources close to the Pelican State chief executive. Jindal was approached by McCain forces to gauge his interest in the vice presidency and told them he was not interested in being vetted due to his desire to continue on with his current job, to which he was elected just one year ago. While the official reason that Jindal took his name out of contention was his lack...

Any of you watching the Eagles-Giants game? A friend e-mailed me that our illustrious Vice President-elect Joe Biden was booed by Philly fans. He’s the silver lining on the gloomy Election 2008 cloud. AP notes the incident:

Politico: McCain staffers starting to rally to Palin’s defense Nothing yet from Steve Schmidt, but foreign policy guru Steve Biegun and spokesman Tracy Schmitt — among others — are on the case. That she remains a player and may be the party’s nominee in four years would make it smart politics for Republican staffers to praise her in print. But those who went on the record suggest that they were doing so out of genuine affection for Palin and a sense that the image of her coming out of the election – that of a self-absorbed conniver — was not...

Shame on you Senator McCain! Not ONE word from you in defense of Sarah Palin regarding the attacks on her??? Shame on you.

Newsweek has published a deep, multi-chapter account of the entire 2008 presidential campaign, with a lot of inside perspective. Somewhere in the middle, it deals with Sen. John McCain's friendship with Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain had apparently pitched Lieberman's name for the No. 2 spot on the ticket, but the idea was quickly shot down by his advisers.

Greta just announced Gov. Palin will be on her show Monday night. I think she said she's going to Alaska to talk to her. As I type this, Greta is talking to Rush about Gov. Palin

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability. Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided. Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%)...

In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy: The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 — caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Bros., according to the police report) — although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.

The finger pointing started even before the GOP ticket abandoned their White House hopes last night between McCain and Palin staffers–some who blame John McCain’s loss on his running mate. But, Palin said she won’t get involved in the “pettiness” or the “negativity” and instead blamed it on “the nature of the beast” referring to politics. “I don’t know what they’re saying or who they are but certainly if anything is based on any kind of anonymous source, I certainly won’t even comment on it.” Palin said, “But I have absolutely no intention of engaging in any of the negativity...

Gore Has a History of Silly Flubs and Boasts, and the Networks Have a History of Ignoring Them Which Vice President is the King of Gaffes? Watch our video collection of Gore Gaffes On ABC's This Week March 14, Bill Kristol noted Al Gore's gotten a free pass on gaffes. George Stephanopoulos protested: "It's hard to say he's gotten a pass. Every time he opens his mouth he gets popped." Not true on TV morning and evening newscasts: January 17, 1993: In a tour of Monticello, Gore asked about a row of busts: "Who are these people?" The New York...

I still love this lady: http://www.palinplanet.com/2008/11/05/palin-says-if-i-cost-mccain-even-one-vote-im-sorry/

...[O]n CNN's "Larry King Live." King asked McCain how much confidence he would have in Palin if he had been elected president but was incommunicado over the Pacific during an attack on the United States. "Total," the GOP presidential nominee replied. "Total?" King asked. "She has the instincts, she shares my world view," McCain explained. "She has -- look, I would remind you that there was a obscure governor from Arkansas, that not too many years ago -- that gained the presidency. And he had no national security experience. He would never match up, as much as I love Bush...

Video here. Fighting for America with power and passion, this is the REAL Sarah Palin. Live. Beautiful. Principled. Strong and unshaken. Quick but moving video from earlier speech. Please do the same and call and email friends and family making the case for this election each day.

Now that the early hysteria has died down, the legacy media is moving into the second phase of their assault against Sarah Palin: sometimes regretful, (often mocking) disapproval over her un-ignorable shortcomings. We’ll know we’ve reached phase three — “Palin’s moment is over” when they start digging up a few more rogue “Republicans” to express “second thoughts”. According to Jon Friedman, the media is simply going to close their eyes to Palin until she goes away. But none of it will stick any more than the savage first-stage attacks stuck. Palin will see it through because of her courage, her...

Discussing Fairness Doctrine right now on Fox and Friends...Professor Mark Lamont Hill from Temple University and Obama supporter claims he hasn't been given access to full interview with Biden and Barbara West from WFTV and that Joe Biden wasn't given enough time to answer questions completely. 1. Professor, you are a dumb ass. Go to the Internet...it is everywhere un-edited....uncomfortable pauses and all. 2. Biden answered the questions completely...what he was watching were "CLIPS" from the interview and used for discussion purposes. The entire video is 4:22 long. My God...the intelligence factor is struggling on the Obama side second by...

WASHINGTON – Joe Biden's performance as Barack Obama's running mate has been pretty predictable — even when unpredictable. The biggest knock against Biden during discussions on whether he would make a good vice presidential nominee was that his mouth tends to get him in trouble. And it has, with Biden recently raising the expectation that Obama would be tested by an international crisis soon after taking office — a comment that Obama said showed Biden's penchant for "rhetorical flourish." Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin have used that comment to suggest that Obama is not prepared to deal with such...

WFTV Channel 9’s Barbara West puts increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden on the hot seat over ACORN, voter fraud, and Barack Obama’s “Spread the wealth” comments. The result? Best interview of Joe Biden ever. The increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Biden was so upset that the campaign canceled an interview West’s station had scheduled with his wife, Jill. The Orlando Sentinel reports:

"Are you joking?" "I don't know who's writing your questions."Those were two of the angry responses by Joe Biden to a couple of tough questions posed by Barbara West on Orlando's WFTV. You can get an idea of just how upset Biden was by reading the title of of this account of the heated interview: "Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden." Here are the observations of what happened from the Orlando Sentinel blog of Hal Boedeker the TV Guy: WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says...

As if the mainstream media's dumpster-diving campaign against Palin isn't galling enough, the conservative elite's casually dismissive attitude toward the brightest GOP star from Alaska may be even worse. Washington insiders' common mantra is "readiness." Colin Powell dismissed Palin as not "ready to be president." Kenneth Adelman, forgetting the governor is already above his pay grade, patronizingly declared her "not close to being acceptable in high office." Their disdain is rivaled by some East Coast conservative pundits. New York Times columnist David Brooks declared Palin "a cancer," and Washington Post writer Kathleen Parker called her "clearly out of her league."...

After putting it on Thursday's front page, the New York Times was still harping on Gov. Palin's wardrobe and who picked it out in three I.Q. melting stories in Friday's edition: "Wardrobe Mysteries Linger..." by Michael Luo and Eric Wilson, "...And a Whiff of Clarity" by Luo alone, plus a Metro section story. In "Clarity," Luo tried to nail down the role in this grand conspiracy of one "Lisa A. Kine." The F.E.C. records showed a "Lisa L. Kine" was reimbursed for more than $2,000 in charges, including those made at Pacifier, as well as others at Macy's, the Gap,...

Palin Calls Self 'Frugal,' Denies Taking $150,000 in Designer Clothes VP candidate calls herself "frugal," insists she did not accept wardrobe from RNC and "that is not who we are." FOXNews.com Friday, October 24, 2008 Of the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee on clothing for the vice presidential candidate, $50,000 worth of clothes was returned immediately after the national convention, $50,000 worth hasn't been worn yet and $50,000 is being used by the Palin clan. Sarah Palin told FOX News on Thursday that some of the clothes that were ill-fitting or just bought to be tried and possibly...

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. -- Sarah Palin insisted in an interview on Thursday that she did not accept $150,000 worth of designer clothes from the Republican Party and said the media spotlight on the story is evidence of bias against women candidates. "I think Hillary Clinton was held to a different standard in her primary race," Palin said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune posted on the newspaper's Web site Thursday night. "Do you remember the conversations that took place about her, say superficial things that they don't talk about with men, her wardrobe and her hairstyles, all of that?...

CNN anchor Campbell Brown led her Election Center program on Wednesday with a critique of the “double standard” concerning the recent attention on the $150,000 that the Republican National Committee spent on vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin: “My issue: there is an incredible double standard here, and we're ignoring a very simple reality. Women are judged based on their appearance far, far more than men. This is a statement of fact. There has been plenty of talk and plenty written about Sarah Palin’s jackets, her hair, her looks....Compare that to the attention given to Barack Obama’s $1,500 suits or John McCain’s...

VIDEO HERE.

Palin will have plenty of time to become fluent on national issues. She will easily benefit from the low expectations threshhold, and will probably even garner positive reviews from the MSM types who disparage her today. Palin will be judged to be "ready" in four years. George Will and David Brooks and Peggy Noonan will all swoon over her once more. Ok, maybe not George Will. Palin is an enormously talented politician. When she knows what she's talking about, or even when she knows enough to fake it, she is very, very appealing, and very good at redirecting questions to...

As NewsBusters has been reporting since we were at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has been a strongly outspoken critic of how the mainstream media have covered Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin since she was first announced as John McCain's runningmate. On Wednesday, appearing on Fox News's "On the Record," Gingrich called recent press reports involving the Republican vice presidential candidate "factually wrong, intellectually dishonest, totally biased, worthy of the Polish state news media attacking Lech Walesa back in the 1980s." Moments later, he put an exclamation point on his criticism: "This...

[snip] But one of the most famous political fashion designers of the year, Susanna Chung Forest, who designed Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits says it would be unusual for a candidate as famous as Sarah Palin to need to buy clothes. “Why do you need to pay for it?” Forest told CBS News from her boutique Susanna Beverly Hills saying that most designers would offer to clothe a candidate for free. “It’s an honor, you are going to design for someone who could be the president of the United States,” noting that the exposure any designer would get from dressing someone as...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The choice by Republican presidential candidate John McCain of 44-year-old Sarah Palin as his running mate failed to woo young voters and even turned some of them off McCain, a Harvard University pollster said Wednesday. "During the vice presidential selection process, I took a lot of phone calls from reporters, pundits and campaign people who thought the Palin pick was going to re-energize the youth vote and get young people to take a second look at McCain," John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics, told reporters. "We now have data that indicate that...

NEW RULE: Whenever someone criticizes Sarah Palin for her supposed unfitness for the job -- or, in Peggy Noonan's words, her lack of a "philosophical grounding" -- they must follow up with an explanation of how Joe Biden is somehow better. Yesterday Biden said Obama's lack of experience gaurantees America will face a renewed threat from our enemies "within the first six months of our presidency." This, of course, is only the latest; he seems to be averaging about one gaffe/day. While Sarah Palin offered a less-than-brilliant response to Couric's question about her reading materials, at least she isn't batting...

The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August. According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74. The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September. The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in...