Why, given politics, is anyone surprised

The New York Daily News has a column by Bill Hutchinson about the whole Palin debacle:

A top aide of Sarah Palin insisted last night that Senator John McCain's running mate is being unfairly made the scapegoat for the campaign's missteps. Meg Stapleton lashed out at anonymous critics inside the now defunct McCain-Palin team, saying they were distorting facts about the Alaska governor's infamous $150,000 shopping spree to cover up misdeeds.
Stapleton, a longtime aide to Palin, charged that campaign officials gave a New York stylist a blank check and a mission to make Palin look presidential. She said Palin tried to object to wearing a $3,500 outfit but was told by campaign staff, "Here's your people, here are your clothes."
Palin was directed to buy her fancy wardrobe before 4 September in order to bill it to the Republican National Convention, Stapleton told ABC News. "They said, 'Bill the convention, under "wardrobe," ' so that the cost could be hidden," Stapleton said. "And then they realized and they were told that's illegal. Then they said, 'Okay, how do we make this legal and appropriate?' So they had somebody pay for it and then the RNC [Republican National Committee] would reimburse them."
Reacting to another leak that Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, Stapleton chalked it up to a "human mistake" the governor made during a briefing session. "She knows it's a continent," Stapleton said.

Rico says he knew she knew it was a continent, just not which one...