Wardrobe Malfunction

The Palins’ now-famous $150K wardrobe? Some of the stores that show up on the RNC expense report can find no record of the purchases.

There are still aspects of the Republican National Committee’s shopping sprees on behalf of Gov. Sarah Palin and her family that are murky. Some of the fashion experts consulted Wednesday, for instance, about the $150,000 in purchases that appeared on Federal Election Commission records were puzzled by where all of that money had gone, given what they had seen of Ms. Palin’s wardrobe. Consider also the $4,902.45 charge at Atelier New York, a high-end men’s store, presumably for Ms. Palin’s husband, Todd, the famous First Dude. Karlo Steel, an owner there, said he had gone through the store’s receipts for September, twice, and found no sales that matched that amount, nor any combination of sales that added up to the total. Because the store carries aggressively directional men’s wear, he caters to a small clientèle and knows most of his customers by name, as well as the history of their purchases.

“Aggressively directional men’s wear”? Wazzat? Also: 47th & 7th? That’s the middle of Times Square. I don’t think they’re selling aggressively directional men’s wear at the TKTS booth or Olive Garden. Atelier is in SoHo. Curious. It’s interesting that the Palin’s personal shopper, Jeff Larson, also works for the GOP robocalling company responsible for those heinous Obama/Ayers calls. Is that where the money really went?