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She paid for it with her own money,

And the problem is...what?

Don’t you see? She’s a hypocrite. She’s vain. She focuses on all the wrong things.

Oh, and she’s a Republican who isn’t subjecting herself to the wolves in the press.

And the problem is...what?

Most of it you gotta read between the lines.

Since they commonly refer to her as a "beauty queen" in order to cast doubts on her intelligence (counting on the widespread prejudice that beautiful=dumb), this tanning bed story subtly adds to the "beauty queen" anti-Palin spin.

BTW, I know of a certain famous governor who got his start competing in Mr. Universe and other body-building events, but when was the last time you saw: "Governor Schwarzenegger, former body-building pageant winner, signed the education bill into law today..."

Then there's the nasty "up to $35,000" slam, which is supposed to make her look elitist, and tarnish her "woman of the people" image. In actuality, this figure likely represents the absolute maximum, gold-plated, top-of-the-line model, including the upper bounds on installation costs, which in itself could be pretty hefty when installed in a tanning business, depending on local building codes, rewiring requirements, S&H costs from a factory in the lower 48 to an Alaskan city not reachable by road - like Juneau is, and so on. I'm guessing the reporter probably really did find out Sarah's actual cost to buy the used bed, but it was some piddling amount, and so he wrote the piece using the highest possible figure that someone theoretically might pay in Alaska, but likely never has.

Then there's the "headline effect" on people who don't actually read the article, but just assume from the headline and/or the first line, that she wasted taxpayer's dollars on frivolous, beauty-queen stuff.

Then there's her supposed insensitivity (how "ironic"!) to skin cancer sufferers in the last paragraph.

Then there's the quote about it not being "normal" for people to have one of these in their home, another veiled accusation of elitism.

And of course nothing at all about the health effects (vitamin deficiencies) for sun-deprived Alaskans.

This is just one more of those hit jobs crafted by that huge army of reporters and other Democrat investigators that flooded into Alaska weeks ago.