Oh, for cryin' out loud -- or, some will think hell freezes over...

... because I am now about to appear to defend Sarah Palin. Okay, now, I have heard enough of the brouhaha over Gov. Sarah Palin's wardrobe. Any hands raised with me on this? Ah, there's one now! Yes ma'am-- you in the mukluks!

Anyone else?

And the fact that this is coming from Republicans from McCain's campaign is even more ridiculous. Just goes to show that guys can be just as bitchy and catty as girls. Apparently, Republican lawyers are flying up to Alaska to demand back the threads. And tell me how many times you snorted or rolled your eyes as you read this snippet of an article from the UK's Daily Mail:

Sarah Palin is sorting through her luggage working out what clothes belong to her and what do not, her spokesman said yesterday.

Meg Stapleton added that the Alaskan governor was coming under unfair attack from a 'firing squad' of anonymous John McCain staffers in a frenzy of finger-pointing.

'It’s a circling firing squad,' said Ms Stapleton.

In a string of damaging briefings, it was claimed that Mrs Palin had spent 'tens of thousands' more on her clothes than budgeted for, that she once met McCain aides dressed in nothing but a towel and that she did not know Africa was a continent....

She and an aide are sorting through luggage to identify campaign clothes purchased by the Republican National Committee.

The designer clothing, which Palin intends to return so it can be donated to charity, became a damaging election issue that is still haunting the defeated vice-presidential candidate.

But Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy aide, praised Palin and said attacks from other staffers were 'dishonorable'.

He told The Anchorage Daily News: 'I think it’s unprecedented in terms of presidential politics to have this level of vindictiveness and pettiness. It’s like these people fell out of favour with a middle school 14-year-old girls’ clique. It’s really unbelievable.'

Much of it is over the Republican National Committee’s purchase of more than £90,000 in clothes for Palin.

Look, I am sick of people who vilify their political opponents personally. I am certainly no fan of Sarah Palin, for logical reasons: too smugly anti-intellectual, too likely to inject her own personal sectarian religion into her politics instead of universal religious values, potential bookburner, and so on. But she gave McCain some definite cred that he had been lacking with core Republican constituencies that made this race closer than it would have otherwise have been. She showed a great sense of humor about herself on her SNL appearances, and I give her great credit for that, especially compared to Sen. McCain's wooden grimaces in place of grinning on the same show. She and I don't agree, but, good Lord, she's not Medusa. I am sick to death of bitterness. I actually with my own two ears heard someone I know call President-elect Obama a n----- in rage over the election the other day.

If you are coming from Alaska onto the world stage, you're going to need some clothes. You can't tromp around in pelts (kidding!) or North Face outerwear all the time. As a practical matter, I see nothing wrong with Palin getting a new wardrobe as the running mate of a national political figure (although I do draw the line at clothing for the rest of her family). The problem is that, according to the McCain-Feingold law, this kind of thing cannot be done by the campaign. And, um, McCain staffers knew this since McCain sponsored the legislation, and so rather than use their noggins, they engaged in some hocus-pocus that just enraged loads of Republican donors.

Now, there was a simple solution for all of this.

John and Cindy McCain keep their finances separate, right? And Cindy McCain is rolling in the stuff, yes? So Cindy McCain, who certainly knows how to wear $150,000 well (and even all at once!) should have just taken her new BFF Sarah on a little shopping spree. This would have been just a few personal gifts between friends, and at the end of the campaign, give 'em back to Cindy or whatever.

Problem solved, and no one would have been the wiser.

But, hey, Republican lawyers, go on and fly up to Alaska to repo the rags. It's all silly and petty at this point.