Opinion: Sarah Palin -- Biting the Hand that Dressed Her?

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For all of you who are comparing Sarah Palin to Eliza Doolittle, the original before-and-after Miss Makeover, you would do well to remember the original ending to George Bernard Shaw’s play, ``Pygmalion,’’ not the sappy happy-ending Broadway and Hollywood spin-off versions.

In the original, Eliza gives her her ‘’creator,’’ Henry Higgins, the metaphorical ‘’lydy-like’’ middle finger and walks out on him to marry someone else.

If the reports are correct and McCain’s Eliza, Sarah Palin, is biting the hand that dressed her, defying the McCain campaign’s dictats, then she is hewing closer to the original Eliza.

She’s even denying the RNC reports that $150,000 was splashed out for the Palin Family makeover. As she told the Chicago Tribune, the clothes were ‘’loaned to us during the convention. And I don’t think it was anywhere near ... What did they say... 150 grand? It wasn’t anywhere near that,’ Palin said.

Um, did she see the bills? Or at least the labels? Valentino, Cole Haan, Tahari, Kate Spade? This wardrobe that she also said stayed in the plane? [Like the rain in Spain]? Or her running mate’s explanation that ‘’she needed clothes’’?

Maybe she doesn’t know how much was spent on her Pygmalion presentation. This is plausible because I don’t think she herself was cruising the aisles at Saks, Neiman’s or Bloomingdales. The RNC probably hired a personal shopper who took her sizes and preferences and shopped a six-figure frenzy.

Here’s the clincher, as far as I’m concerned -- two of them, in fact: one in her favor, one against.

In her favor: check out those red Kate Spade croc print red pumps. See the gap at the back? They are too big for her. No woman doing her own shopping would walk out of the store with such a poor fit on such expensive [$297] shoes.

But to all that protesting overmuch about ‘Gosh, gee whiz, we’re really frugal, these clothes didn’t cost anywhere near six figures and anyway, I didn’t wear them anyway,’ add this:

What woman wouldn’t notice the wardrobe upgrade from her standard attire, acquired -- as she declared herself -- from the Anchorage resale shop ``Out of the Closet,’’ which does indeed carry designer labels, but probably not the lavish range that Saks and Bloomingdale’s provides?

Now here in Southern California, ``Out of the Closet’’ is a chain of ``fabulous’’ thrift stores benefiting the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. ``Fabulous’’ is its own word, and one that I, a frequent shopper, endorse.

The website for the Anchorage OOTC makes no mention of AIDS. Trademark lawyer alert?

The McCain campaign says that after electoral midnight on November 4, the Eliza/Sarah wardrobe will be donated to charity. Which suggests that Palin has something in common with another figure of fiction: Cinderella.