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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tough Times on the Wingnut Welfare Circuit

Tough Times on the Wingnut Welfare Circuit

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Aww, shucks:

Palin’s bookers are said to be asking for $100,000 per speech, but an industry expert tells Page Six: “The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot.”

Maybe she, Carrie Prejean, and Joe the Plumber can go as a panel? Dan Quayle can emcee.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    Cain

    Looks like she’ll just have to go on the wingnut welfare talk circuit instead… personally, she’s not even fit to talk to elementary kids. They’d only laugh at her.

    cain

  3. 3.

    asiangrrlMN

    One.hundred.thousand.dollars. For a ‘speech’ from the spewer of verbal salad. The mind boggles. Well, mine does at any rate. Hers, methinks, is boggle-less.

    By the way, I got a hearty chuckle over the universities have a leftist slant in the article. Had to slide that in there, didn’t they.

    Gah. $7 million in advance. As a writer, I weep.

  4. 4.

    jibeaux

    Well, there’s that, and there’s the fact that her work ethic vis a vis actually reporting for speeches she’s booked seems to be like the mobster contractors in The Money Pit (okay, there’s probably a more contemporary reference, but I can’t think of one right now), where the contractor says, You’re in luck! We work today!

  5. 5.

    calipygian

    Even funnier, imho, from further down:

    “Palin is so uninteresting to so many groups — unless they are interested in moose hunting,” said our insider. “What does she have to say? She can’t even describe what she reads.“

    Yup. Boring to anyone with more IQ points than digits.

  10. 10.

    Svensker

    Wait, so Sarah turned in “her” manuscript for her book 4 months early, so they had to bump up the pub date? Wonder if that had anything to do with her sudden resignation?@

    And calipygian — I love that quote. Bitchy bitchy bitchy. Also, heh, indeedy.

  12. 12.

    Dave L

    They’re “paralyzed with fear”, BECAUSE “they think she’s a blithering idiot”?!!!

    Well, that explains a lot about Republican tactics these days, doesn’t it?

  13. 13.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    I thought speechifying was simply a matter of reading from the teleprompter. Has something changed?

  15. 15.

    Tonal Crow

    What? Some people don’t like vapid platitudes, hypocritical bashing, and jingoistic claptrap smothered in a heavy verbal-tic sauce? What has happened to this country?

  16. 16.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    What I find fascinating about this episode is that wingnut celebrities like Palin, Hannity, or whoever have a built in best seller. The reason they get books published is because they sell a lot of them. It matters not one wit that they are factually challenged or poorly written. The vast majority of people who buy these books don’t read books. They may flip through it and pick out a few nuggets but they are not readers. You don’t have to be a reader to get your talkingpoints from Rush and Beck.
    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Forget paying to hear her speak, I wouldn’t go if they were paying me to hear her speak.

    QFT

  18. 18.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    “The big lecture buyers in the US are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because they think she is a blithering idiot.”

    Considering that the audience are blithering idiots too, I don’t see what the big problem is.

    Never mind about The Rapture (R), I guess now we need to worry about The Blithering (R).

  23. 23.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Maybe she, Carrie Prejean, and Joe the Plumber can go as a panel? Dan Quayle can emcee.

    Billed as what? The “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” All-stars?

  25. 25.

    azlib

    I guess Jon Stewart was right when he called her a grifter. It will be interesting to see the book reviews and how well the book sells. I am sure she will do quite well. There are enough “blithering idiots” who will buy the book and lap up every word.

  26. 26.

    gocart mozart

    @asiangrrlMN:
    By the way, I got a hearty chuckle over the universities have a leftist slant in the article. Had to slide that in there, didn’t they.

    Its a Rupert Murdock publication. I think its their contract.

  27. 27.

    Comrade Darkness

    @DougJ: From whose perspective? I’d rank Sam as the smartest, but I’m not sure who’s in the rear Dan or Sarah. Really, Quayle was a freakin’ piece of work on par with Sparkles Palin. Right up to the part about supposedly sexually exciting the opposite sex to vote for the ticket.

  28. 28.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @DougJ:

    I don’t think it’s fair to lump Quayle in with Palin and Joe the Plumber. Seriously.

    Well it would be kind of fun to play a video clip of Quayle’s most famous speech (the one about Murphy Brown and defining deviancy down with regard to single motherhood) and then ask him in person about its relevance today, while Palin was sitting on stage 10 feet away. I might be willing to throw down a few shekels to see that.

  29. 29.

    les

    Hey, $100K gets you someone else’s words telepromptered more or less randomly by a perky ex-almost-beauty queen, with sparkles!! What’s to bitch about?

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    Palin’s in a class (rogue) all by herself, but I suspect the lecture business is down for most buckraking speakers.

    $100,000 is insane for a novelty act.

    I wonder if Washington Speakers Bureau has ever booked her, anywhere. Anyone know?

  34. 34.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    They are going about this all wrong. Just film a 30-minute infomercial called “Sarah’s Tour of Real America” and call it a day.

  35. 35.

    les

    @azlib:

    “There are enough “blithering idiots” who will buy the book and lap up every word display it prominently, unread.

    No thanks needed.

  36. 36.

    Comrade Darkness

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: This is a woman who fails to see the relevance of her daughter’s pregnancy to her insistence about abstinence-only education. Any condemning commentary on the moral end will fly right on by. Moral failings DO NOT happen in republican households. Period.

  37. 37.

    Comrade Darkness

    @les: and it’s another 16.50 plus shipping that won’t be finding its way into the campaign war chests of the 2010 republicans. Go Sarah! Sell them books!

  40. 40.

    ironranger

    Another best seller, the Left Behind series. When those books came out I started reading the first one out of curiousity. I couldn’t finish it. Not only did it give me the creeps, the writing was incredibly bad.

  41. 41.

    NutellaonToast

    How about we all pool our money and pay $100,000 to never ever ever ever have to ever ever EVER ever hear from or about Sarah Palin again?

    Also, how much did Nailin’ Palin gross? Maybe she’s going the wrong route with this “speaking” thing.

  52. 52.

    Pasquinade

    Although this story has appeared in the NY Post and the LA Times, every FReeper has managed to miss it.

    Things that make you go, “hmmmmmm?”

    Their moderators did manage to delete a Little Green Footballs thread about Palin’s ghostwriter’s ties to Robert Stacy McCain.

    Little Green Footballs: Sarah Palin’s Book Ghostwritten by Associate of White Supremacist McCain

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34788_Sarah_Palins_Book_Ghostwritten_by_Associate_of_White_Supremacist_McCain/comments/

  53. 53.

    shoutingattherain

    @freelancer:

    But is The Blithering as asinine as The Happening?

    Having never seen The Happening, I can’t say for sure. I do know they are both horror shows.

    I can’t imagine either of them being worse than this piece of shit.

  56. 56.

    PaulW

    Part of me is thinking the current state of the GOP is all part of an elaborate plan by Dan Quayle to gain his revenge on all the people who called him an idiot. He secretly gathered all the dumbest conservatives he could find, get them promoted by the likes of Rove and his ilk, and set them loose upon the populace. I expect him to pop up on Fox News and shout “Punk’d!” in another month or two.

  57. 57.

    Nellcote

    I think it’s interesting that Murdoch’s Post is the source of this story considering among other things that Harper Collins, her publisher, is another Murdoch property.

    I keep hearing the title as “Going Rove”. I’m afraid that one is sticking.

  58. 58.

    Makewi

    Joe Biden is a 100 times dumber than Sarah Palin. Easy. Which I’m cool with. I like it when the VP provides quality comic relief.

  59. 59.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Pasquinade:

    Wow, that is just terrible judgment. And that post at LGF is absolutely ripping her and her ghostwriter to shreds.

    @Makewi:

    Joe Biden is a 100 times dumber than Sarah Palin. Easy. Which I’m cool with. I like it when the VP provides quality comic relief.

    Are you even trying anymore?

  60. 60.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Nellcote: “Rove” at least has positive connotations (if you squint at it). “Rogue” has only negative connotations, including “Tramp” and “Unprincipled Scoundrel”.

  61. 61.

    SpotWeld

    What’s to be worried about that.. any venue could make twice that back from the rotten produce concession alone!

  63. 63.

    calling all toasters

    Joe Biden is a 100 times dumber than Sarah Palin.

    Ah, yes, I remember it well:

    Couric: What newspapers do you read?
    Biden: durrrrr… pffft…. pfffft…. durr…. I made a poopie!

    Wait, that’s only twice as dumb as Palin. I don’t think 100 times dumber is achievable, except possibly by thinking Palin is smart.

  64. 64.

    gbear

    Maybe Sarah can get some gigs if she says she’s going on a ‘listening tour’ rather than a ‘speaking tour’. If a group is clueless enough to actually think about booking Sarah, they may also just be dumb enough to buy that lie. Think it might work, Makewi?

  65. 65.

    DougJ

    Joe Biden is a 100 times dumber than Sarah Palin.

    I like your comments in general. But sometimes you go over the line into obvious spoof. This is one of those times.

    There is no way you believe that.

  67. 67.

    Brett

    I wonder if they’ll do the usual book-scam to get her book shown as a best-seller. You know, pressure the major book stores to buy tons of the books, since that gets you on the list even if the retailers don’t sell a single copy. And when they sell few copies in the stores, the retailers sell them at discount prices to right-wing foundations who then give them away as freebies along with memberships.

  68. 68.

    Brett

    EDIT: Along with that, they sell the books at fire-sale prices to the foundations (the publishers do, that is) directly.

  69. 69.

    fishbane

    John, you used to be a Republican, right? I’m really not ribbing you here. (I used to call myself libertarian, and while you can’t, look where that got me.)

    I know you hit the dark side mainly on policy concerns, but what did you think of these shenanigans before?

    And here’s another question for anyone, since I’m up way too late, where do failed Democrats farm for money and attention? I know there’s a policy circuit for them, if they actually know shit, and other people who know shit wish to listen to them, but I don’t see any analogue. Do I wear blinders?

  70. 70.

    JGabriel

    NY Post:

    Lynn Vincent, Palin’s collaborator, wrote the book so fast, publication has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17.

    Looks like Vincent couldn’t wait to get done with Palin …

    .

  71. 71.

    Anne Laurie

    What is QFT? Quantum Field Theory?

    Hah! And some peoplethought I shouldn’t bother including ‘Quoted For Truth’ in the Lexicon!

    @Elizabelle:

    Washington Speakers Bureau website: wanted to see who or what would pop up with “select speakers like Sarah Palin”:…they’ve got her listed in the “physically challenged” category (among others). Why?

    She is the mother of a Downs Syndrome baby, whom she chose not to abort. There are people who would pay to hear her talk about that decision, although possibly not business-people. Realistically, she can probably string together more coherent phrases talking about Trig than she can talking about policy.

  72. 72.

    IndieTarheel

    Browsing through #rejectedpalintitles:

    “Row Versus Wade: Up the Creek Without a Paddle”

    Classic.

  73. 73.

    zoe kentucky in pittsburgh

    I wonder if they’ll do the usual book-scam to get her book shown as a best-seller. You know, pressure the major book stores to buy tons of the books, since that gets you on the list even if the retailers don’t sell a single copy. And when they sell few copies in the stores, the retailers sell them at discount prices to right-wing foundations who then give them away as freebies along with memberships.

    Yes, that is exactly how they’ll do it. Palin will make a mint. Let’s just hope that it’s an interesting enough book that it takes her out of the running for any public office ever again.

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