Bought and Paid For

I love it. Palin's in a pickle...again:

AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids' travel

Read the whole thing and send it around to everyone you know. Especially this part:

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

And this:

On Aug. 6, three weeks before Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose Palin his running mate, and after Alaska reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters' travel.

In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as "First Family attending" and "First Family invited" to explain the girls' attendance.

"The governor said, 'I want the purpose and the reason for this travel to be clear,'" said Linda Perez, state director of administrative services.

Or this:

In October 2007, Palin brought daughter Bristol along on a trip to New York for a women's leadership conference. Plane tickets from Anchorage to La Guardia Airport for $1,385.11 were billed to the state, records show, and mother and daughter shared a room for four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House hotel, which overlooks Central Park.

The event's organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter...

...Griffin, the campaign spokesman, said he believes someone with the event personally sent an e-mail to Bristol inviting her, but he did not have it to provide.

I've stayed at the Essex House (thx to CNN). It's gorgeous. And more expensive than a lot of other hotels in the area. Alaska taxpayers foot the bill for some pricey mother daughter daughter daughter vacations.

Nope. No abuse of power. No extraneous spending. Move along. Nothing to see here.