Finger-Pointing on the Right

A quick tour through some morning headlines and columns that offer a glimpse into the right tearing into each other over who's to blame over everything from Palin's wardrobe expense to the Palin pick.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen ridicules the conservative magazine writers who cruised up to Alaska and championed Sarah Palin. "Especially in the Weekly Standard, Palin was acclaimed as a tribune of the people. As for her critics, they were dismissed as 'liberal media' types who were not, like conservative editors and TV commentators, one with the people. [Weekly Standard editor Bill] Kristol hit this theme hard, having somehow absorbed Wal-Mart sensitivities while living most of his life in either New York or Washington where, as I can personally attest, real Americans are encountered only when summoned to carry out home repairs. ... It is the height of chutzpah, you betcha, for a coterie of ideologues to accuse Palin's critics of political snobbery. It is also somewhat sad for a movement once built on the power of ideas -- I am speaking now of neoconservatism -- to simply swoon for a pretty face and pheromone-powered charisma. But it is, I confess, just plain fun to see all these expense-account six-packers be so wrong."

From Politico's Mike Allen: "In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless 'diva' description, calling [Palin] 'a whack job.'"

Meantime, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes and Kristol are reportedly blaming Palin's extravagant wardrobe expense on Nicole Wallace, the McCain staffer and former Bush White House official whose spouse heads a new anti Iran group. Is Standard blogger turned McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb the Standard's campaign mole? whispering the secret skinny that Wallace is only a "real American" poseur who is responsible for defiling Palin's Joe Six-Pack image and Wal-Mart cred?

A shame to see these expense-account six-packers as Cohen calls them turn their wrath and whispered smear campaigns on each other with their usual humility.