Palin Stylist: $22,800. Foreign Policy Advisor: $12,500.

Obama victory in November: priceless.

Here's one more reason the McCain campaign is losing: it has spent more on Sarah Palin's appearance than on getting good foreign policy advice. KELO points to this AP report that says the McCain campaign paid Amy Strozzi, Palin's traveling stylist, $22,800 for a few weeks work. During the same reporting period (at last as I understand it from the AP report), the McCain campaign paid its foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, $12,500. (And let's not get started on the clothing bill....)

Now heck, for that money, I'll take either job. But is making Sarah Palin look good really twice as hard or twice as important as knowing how to deal with the Russians?

Style over substance, indeed.

Another Invitation for Cindy McCain to Go Topless

...wherein the Madville Times guarantees its continued blacklisting on the South Dakota K-12 server....

In response to my post on McCain's misogyny, I received the following e-mail from Nadine Gary of the National Go Topless Campaign:

Dear Cory,

We read the article you published on Keloland.com called Sex, Oil, and Misogyny where you point out Mr McCain 's misogyny for jokingly suggesting that his wife partake in the Buffafo Chip beauty Pageant "where nudity is not uncommon" in Sturgis,SD.

We would like to take this opportunity to let you know that gotopless.org is organizing an upcoming gotopless National protest on Saturday Aug 23rd to which Mrs McCain has formally been invited because gender inequality is unfornately not a joke in the US when men are free to be sans shirt while women are arrested for it. If Mrs. McCain is to be the future first lady, we hope she will be able to influence her husband on this issue. Please note that Mrs. Obama also received a formal invitation on the behalf of Gotopless.org.

At peril of exposing my own latent sexism, I decline to provide an actual link to the organization here, since, well, it would take you to naked pictures. And at peril of exposing my latent religious intolerance, I note only that this particular movement was founded by Claude Vorhilon, a.k.a. Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelians.

You know, the Raelian Church... a UFO religion.

Mrs. Obama will likely be too busy polishing her speech to the Democratic National Convention to participate in the protest. No word on Mrs. McCain's intentions... or on whether she'll have to wear alien antenna if she participates.

McCain Addiction to Privilege More Troubling Than Addiction to Painkillers

My wife mentioned over supper yesterday that Cindy McCain, second wife of GOP Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, is a drug addict. I looked up from my chips, wondering if DailyKos had replaced Prairie Roots at my dinner table. Nope: same sensible lady I woke up with.

Cindy McCain herself openly admitted her addiction to Percocet and Vicodin in the Arizona press in 1994. The public confession came in an effort to get out in front of potential bad press from a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation looking into whether Mrs. McCain had defrauded her own medical charity to obtain bogus prescriptions—basically, she was stealing drugs to feed her addiction.

Now my wife isn't into the politics of personal destruction. She leans toward the position of Harold Pollack, who writes in the Huffington Post that we ought not trash Cindy McCain for falling victim to an all-too-common medical problem.

What does distinguish the story of Mrs. McCain's addiction is her ability to escape legal consequences. Mrs. McCain paid financial restitution and got treatment, but she never served time, and her husband's lawyers initially got a deal with the DEA to keep the whole matter secret. How many of us commoners would receive such gentle treatment from the law for theft and drug abuse?

Ponder this double standard: Michelle Obama says a few words about her newfound pride in her country (McCain himself would say one's feelings about one's country can change), and attacks fly that we can't trust her or her husband in the White House. Cindy McCain actually breaks the law, violates the trust of her family and her charity, and her wealth and her husband's power win her special deal from the government to protect her reputation as a pillar of the community.

I generally take a personal responsibility line on drug addiction, but I can dig up some sympathy for drug addicts as victims of a medical condition who need help. I have a little harder time finding sympathy for folks who use their wealth and power to escape the punishment regular folks would face.