Campaign Expense Hypocrisy: Palin And Obama

"The RNC Spent $150k on clothes for Palin!" the headlines screamed in one form or another. "The Empresses new clothes!" is pretty much what the media's cry amounted to. Yeah, the Republican National Convention did in fact spend about $148K, in new designer clothes for Gov. Sarah Palin. Supposedly, to dress her up a bit for the campaign since her personal wardrobe is a bit modest. I guess that can happen when your a REAL person, and not a puppet of the moneybags on the left.

And as usual, there's rarely a mention of the intended "after use" of these expenditures, when viewing the articles you find across the web. Or from the major media outlets themselves. Oh, they might make a passing mention of she won't be keeping them. Or a casual aside about charities. Most like to allude to her having to pay the tax on the "gifts." But yes, Gov. Palin will be donating the clothes purchased for her (and her family) by the RNC, to charities after the election. No, since the clothes technically are "owned" by the RNC and were not a gift, as they will be returned, there shouldn't be any tax liability involved.

But I must admit, I'm not gonna circle the wagons here and try to justify the clothing expense. I'm a bit disappointed to be honest. I don't think it was necessary to spend that much on clothing for her. She really didn't need it. Personally, I actually think she may have done better "without" the new wardrobe. Or at least, a more moderate expenditure for it.

But while we're on the topic of "excess campaign expenditures," I came across this article the other day. As it turns out, "Barry" likes to blow money too. A LOT more money.

The article is on NewsMax, by Ronald Kessler titled "Obama’s Hawaii Trips Cost More Than Palin’s Clothes." As it turns out, Obama has spent quite a bit of campaign cash on his trips to Hawaii. A few times. Although, to his mindless minions there's no expense he (B. Hussein Obama) could make that is unforgivable. Regardless of what it is. Barry could go buy a Porn-Video Production company, and they would justify it as "promotion of the arts" or some crap. As for me, Okay, I'll forgive him the recent trip, to see his ailing grandmother. Kind of. He still could have flown commercial like the rest of the real world. But for this one trip, I'll let him off the hook.

But what about his other trips? Like his vacations there in Hawaii? According to Brad Blakeman, who was the guy who did the scheduling for Bush, a Boeing 757 costs about $20K an hour to operate. That's for fuel, crew, maintenance, everything. As it stands, a trip to Hawaii (from Chicago) is about 10 hours. So a round trip to Hawaii and back? Do the math. THAT'S $400K...! $400K of campaign cash. Yet, no outrage over that? Not a peep from the media? Go figure.

There was another interesting side note about Obama's vacation trip that Blakeman brought up. That Obama's vacation was "In the summertime, when gas was soaring and Americans were having to pinch their pennies, this guy gets on his campaign plane and goes to Hawaii on vacation. He did a couple campaign stops in a state that is not a swing state and is a guaranteed win for Obama. That was clearly to cover the tracks of this vacation."

So, in retrospect, yeah Palin could and probably should have gone the less pricey route. But if the media is going to report on "Campaign funds expenditures," perhaps they should report on ALL of the expenditures.