Who’d a thunk it? $150K buys a lot of stuff, some good and some that definitely fall into the "What was she thinking?" category. This  picture (and the rest of the slideshow) are at Huffington Post, which as you might imagine has jumped on this story.

Not to pick on the family or anything, because I actually don’t really like to do that, but one of the daughters has an LV bag — a great pic I’d tried unsuccessfully to track down a while back. Of course, the family wasn’t exactly impoverished and may well have bought that bag on their own. Either scenario kind of puts a damper on their whole we’re-just-folks schtick, though, doesn’t it?

I saw the story first on Politico, which says this:

But hours after the story was posted on Politico’s website and legal issues were raised, the campaign issued a new statement.

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s
remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and
blouses," said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent
that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Of course! What else were they going to say? But I suspect this story has legs (this morning it was the big story on Huff Post).

And this piece of it is so compelling that I find it tough to get worked up about the actual clothes involved. I will say this, though: The red suit with the (no doubt very expensive) boots? No, no, no. Not for the campaign trail and probably not ever. The suit looks dressy, as if it would be great for a businessy cocktails event. The boots are beautiful but just all wrong for the suit even if they’re brown but especially if they’re black. (What is it with her stylists and people in general thinking black and red are attractive together in any way?)

Politico‘s slide show of outfits is even better than Huff Post’s but I couldn’t capture the pictures. There’s one where she looks great in boots, and dark skirt, and an ivory jacket. But most of the outfits are, to me, misses.

Now, you can bet someone’s going to say: "But Michelle Obama’s clothes aren’t exactly cheap." (For more about Michelle’s clothes, I recommend Mrs. O.) But first, who is buying her clothes? I really, really hope the Obamas personally are paying her clothing bill. Second, I don’t see that she’s spent $150K on her and her family’s clothes (although I have no evidence for that, just my gut feeling). She by all accounts has a strong sense of her own style and let’s be fair: Chicago and Princeton (and the other places I may have left out) are probably more helpful to someone looking to hone her own style than, say, Wasilla, Alaska.

Need proof? Check out the pink bunny outfit Sarah’s wearing in her before picture.