You Couldn't Make This Up If You Tried

More evidence that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was perhaps the single worst Presidential campaign decision ever made, this story from the New York Times:

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staffer. It was Amy Strozzi, who was identified by the Washington Post this week as Gov. Sarah Palin’s traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show “So You Think You Can Dance?”, was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi’s payment as “Personnel Svc/Equipment.”

Even assuming Ms. Strozzi worked (or was available to work, since you can't constantly apply make up during the day) 60 hours per week, that's still a rate of $190 per hour; pas mal as they say here in Paris.  And if she's paid by the job, assuming Ms. Palin gets made-up four times a day, each and every day (that has to be bad for the skin, no?), that calculates as a little over $400 per job.  Not too shabby, especially since Ms. Palin presumably does some of the work herself.

Ms. Palin-of-the-People, how are we supposed to take your rhetoric about all the evil elitists in Washington D.C. seriously when, with your $150,000 in clothes and your $400 make-up jobs, you apparently either already are a member of the elite, or have serious aspirations of joining?

Memo to John McCain:  Next time, take more than fifteen minutes.