McCain Staffers: Palin an "Adult"; "Diva"

Normally the knives come out after the election. But that was back in the old days, when Republicans were conservative.

And so, a pre-election contest: which unnamed McCain staffer hates Sarah Palin more?

There's unnamed McCain staffer no. 1:

A McCain insider told The Post that relations between Palin and some of the campaign aides with her have soured. "She's lost faith with the staff. She knows the $150,000 wardrobe story damaged her," the insider said. But the novice vice-presidential candidate is partly to blame, the campaign official sniped.

"She's an adult. She didn't ask questions about where the clothes came from? She's now positioning herself for her own future. Of course, this is bad for John. It looks like no one is in charge."

And, brandishing a very different knife, we've got unnamed McCain staffer no. 2:

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone, she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

So what's worse, getting schooled grandma-style, or in the style of a bitchy gay man slinging back cosmos on Saturday night?

Defending herself, Palin's gettin' all mavericky:

“Your state is filled with good, hard-working people all loving the outdoors,” she said [to a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa], “and it was nice and crisp getting off the airplane and coming into the — it reminded me a lot of Alaska, so I put my warm jacket on, and it is my own jacket. It doesn't belong to anybody else."

Check it -- her jacket is a metaphor for herself. I didn't know they sold mavericky jackets at Wal-Mart. And besides, if your jacket is one that belongs to someone else, and you're wearing it despite the fact it does not belong to you, that's like, socialism, or terrorism, or elitism, or one of those -isms, or at the very least something that would call someone's status as a maverick and reformer and independent-minded person into question?