Fair enough, Al.  It's obviously something which reflects bad judgement by Palin on all sorts of levels, as you point out, but the media is starting to get those examples of her lies, lack of knowledge and intellectual curiosity, etc. out there anyway.  I just have this image of someone reading this story and thinking "come on, who the hell cares whether or not she bought a used tanning bed?" and tuning out future legitimate attacks on Palin's record as a result.  And I still think an election about Palin is a loser for Obama--he's running against McCain, and needs to keep the focus there.  But if you think this isn't likely to backfire, I guess it can't hurt.

Of course, from Palin's point of view, who needs to go to any other country when you've got a tanning bed?  Makes the whole need for a passport sort of moot, since we only travel for tans anyway.

/lackofintellectualinterestoff