150,000 on clothes?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/22/palin_outfits_cost_rnc_150k.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/22/campbell.brown.looks/index.html

My first thought was astonishment that a woman who claims to cut wasteful spending would spend upwards of 150,000 on clothes. I mean couldn't you spend a little less and still look nice? But, the more I think about it the more it at least makes sense, even if it does still seem like a lot.

I was watching a news report in which Courtney Hazlett reported from memo she had received from ABC on its wardrobe guidelines for their characters per episode. "When you boil it down your talking about $4,275 per female character per episode on a prime time show. If you do the math, basically what Sarah Palin or her people have spent is about the equivalent of what it would cost to have her appear on 29 episodes of a prime time TV show." If you add up all of her public appearances being recorded and replayed I guess it probably would add up to over 29 appearances.

Campbell Brown did a commentary on the double standard she sees. "Women get scrutinized based on appearance far more than men. And look, I speak from experience here. When I wear a bad outfit on the air, I get viewer e-mail complaining about it. A lot of e-mail. Seriously. When Wolf Blitzer wears a not-so-great tie, how much e-mail do you think he gets? My point is for women, unfortunately, appearance is part of the job."

Palin aides say that the intent was always to auction these clothes to charity afterward. It must be like that jet she tried to sell on e-bay that later sold for less than was originally paid but somehow made a profit.