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Home › Politics

Politics | 11/12/2008 6:00 am

Palin Innocent in Shopping Spree Scandal, Says Source

Insider sources exonerate Palin in clothing debacle, but raise even more mysterious questions…
By The Staff at wowOwow.com
© AP

Sarah Palin caught a lot of flack for spending an alleged $150,000 on her campaign-ready wardrobe. The matter’s been fodder for plenty of press, but Gov. Palin finally spoke out this week and told Fox News’s Greta van Susteren that she had nothing to do with the controversial shopping sprees at upscale shops. Said the former vice-presidential candidate, "[I] did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes. I would have been happy to wear my own clothes from day one."

Today, a source close to John McCain’s presidential campaign revealed exclusively to wowOwow that it was two stylists who often do work for CBS journalist Katie Couric who were hired by former CBS News political analyst and McCain senior strategist, Nicolle Wallace, around the time of the Republican National Convention. Wallace had worked for CBS Evening News until May 2008 when she left to work on the McCain campaign. Said the source, "They weren’t given any budget or parameters. They just told the stylists to work for her, because coming from Alaska, she needed a new look. She was a small-town girl who needed to look like a big-city girl."

Wallace is close friends with Couric. Couric would go on to get the second major interview and the longest television time with the former Republican vice-presidential candidate.

The two stylists, whose names have not been released, were the ones who bought the controversial wardrobe that Palin went on to wear. The source said that Sarah Palin "was used to wearing Ann Taylor and then all of a sudden, clothing was being brought in for her family." Concluded the source, "They simply picked out the clothes for Gov. Palin and told her to wear it. The stylists were told not to tell her how much the clothes cost but just to put them on."

Palin went on to distance herself even further in her van Susteren interview, "[I] didn’t know the New York stylists who they had hired or anything else. They were really nice gals. They were wonderful people. And you know, it was, I guess, productive, in a sense, in that they picked out some really nice clothes to borrow for a while there. But that was not anything that the Palin family would have chosen for ourselves."

Read more about: CBS, Election 2008, John McCain, Katie Couric, News, Nicolle Wallace, Politics, Sarah Palin

112 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Nanny hasSeven
Sorry about that ~ I hit “submit” before I wrote anything. But really, all I was going to say was WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT PALIN AND HER WARDROBE?????? I really don’t care, and I’m sure there are many others out there who don’t care either. There are so many other news-worthy things happening in our country and in the world, the media (including these posts at WOW) need to get off Palin and get on to more important things. They all keep talking about Palin running for President in 2012 ~ come on, are they really SERIOUS???? Please, please, please ~ cease and desist!!!!
By Nanny hasSeven on 11/12/2008 9:22 am
Ky McQueen
I agree….Palin needs to focus on Alaska. Alaska has issues right now and she need to govern her state first before thinking about the White house.
By Ky McQueen on 11/12/2008 10:31 am
Lori F.
I can agree with you to a point Ky, but when Obama was at the time a U.S. Senator from Illinois, running forever as President, no one was saying he should focus on the State of Illinois! And you and I both know that Illinois has even more serious issues than Alaska! Do we have a double standard here?
By Lori F. on 11/13/2008 10:19 am
DeBúrca obj
But Obama WAS running for president. Palin just lost an election and she is not running for anything at the moment. Huge difference. Palin is just promoting Palin.
By DeBúrca obj on 11/13/2008 8:23 pm
Lori F.
Am sorry but your comment has nothing to do with the subject matter. Three years ago when Obama won the US Senate seat he started running for President. No one say he should focus on his U S Senate position of Illinois. Palin situation is totally different. And Palin is not promoting Palin! What she doing is clearing up the crap the national media and McCain Staffers said about her.
By Lori F. on 11/14/2008 6:47 pm
DeBúrca obj
I disagree. Obama did not go on the campaign trail until he decided to run. The election is over. Palin is not running for anything at the moment and her only reason for going on a bunch of entertainment type interviews and FOX, is to promote herself.
By DeBúrca obj on 11/14/2008 8:30 pm
Meg Umans
I find Palin’s ongoing absurdities useful, Nanny. She’s absorbed a lot of my nasty thoughts and feelings. Like one of those toy clowns with the weighted base, she just keeps coming up with things that I get to rip to shreds in my mind, without saying anything that could hurt any real people.
By Meg Umans on 11/12/2008 12:47 pm
Chips AHoey
exactly - UNCLE!
By Chips AHoey on 11/12/2008 2:05 pm
Chips AHoey
that comment was for Nanny’s post…
By Chips AHoey on 11/12/2008 2:06 pm
Frannie Em
Nanny People cared when the story first appeared on the site, and lined up and really took Palin apart about it, and it was mostly women. I don’t know if the article above is so that posters have the opportunity serve up a little dose of contrition, or if women will continue to disparage Gov Palin. Funny how everyone was willing to jump in and tear her apart when the story first came out, and now people say “who cares?”.
By Frannie Em on 11/12/2008 4:27 pm
DeBúrca obj
People just didn’t want her to be a heartbeat from the presidency THAT is why they jumped on the story… anything to get rid of her. Now, she is gone, thus the “who cares?”
By DeBúrca obj on 11/12/2008 6:09 pm
T P
“Anything to get rid of her” even lie or make up fabrications to do so. That ain’t right. That’s wrong. Period.
By T P on 11/14/2008 10:32 am
DeBúrca obj
Perhaps I didn’t express myself well. By “anything” I meant they were going to jump on any story that was further proof that Palin was not up for the job. And nobody has proven that any of this wasn’t true. It wasn’t about Palin’s spending habits, it was about McCain making such a bad choice for VP in the first place and then following up by spending $150,000 to dress her up like a doll (while claiming sexism any time she was criticized). My point all along was that the whole story here is that the MCCAIN CAMPAIGN and that is was a hypocritical mess. Spending this kind of money to dress up their shill to send out on the stump to call Obama an “elitist” and talk about the “real America”… was one more indication of it.
By DeBúrca obj on 11/14/2008 12:19 pm
Dona Howlett
DeBurca, That’s what the losers don’t seem to understand. We who didn’t want Sara Palin in the VP office was simply because we didn’t believe she was qualified………..She wasn’t…………..she still isn’t and it would take more than 4 years for her to get much better………….Sorry She just isn’t Presidential materiel….. I think the big fuss about the clothes was not the fact that she had them but that the Republicans took contribution money from the public(which is illegal) funds to buy the clothes. Further more, most of us on this site who were negative about Sarah Palin didn’t Think she was fit for the VP job………..much less the President’s job. Didn’t then………..still don’t. She was a rabble rouser……..tried to divide the Country………told out and out lies……. I don’t owe her any apologies and don’t think anyone else here on Wow does either. Those who think we do still have there heads in the sand………. They, just like Palin were being used by the Republican Party. If I think anything about Palin beyond what I’ve already stated it’s this. I kind of feel sorry for her because I think they USED her and are now throwing her under the bus…………. McCain lost because MCCAIN LOST………..It’s that simple. Obama won because he was the better man for the job and better for The Country right now.
By Dona Howlett on 11/14/2008 6:38 pm
DeBúrca obj
EXACTLY! And the clothes thing isn’t even a fraction of it! Also, something just struck me about Palin and all these interviews she is going on whining about how tough the media was on her. When she is asked where she thinks the media was too tough on her, she is saying, the clothes thing wasn’t true, the baby not being hers wasn’t true, etc., but not one word about the story about the affair with her husband’s partner, not a word about that not being true. Not that THAT would even matter, because the fact is, affair or no affair, she still was a lousy pick for VP and McCain deserved to lose just for that alone, because it showed that he was willing to throw the country under bus in order to win.
By DeBúrca obj on 11/14/2008 8:28 pm
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