Genuine Book Deal or Political Grift?

Great Debates
1

The Lady MacBeth of New York, Hillary Clinton, got an $8 million advance on her new book * An Invitation To the White House.* This is quite a large advance, just shy of the $8.5 given to the Pope for his book advance. According to one source (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/hillary_clinton_book001215.html) her book would have to sell as many copies as the most recent Harry Potter book—about 2 million copies—to cover the cost of the advance.

“Book contracts and especially book advances are one way that a large corporation can put a great deal of money into the pocket of a powerful politician…. An enormous up-front payment beforehand can just be a way for her to exploit her office for personal gain” says Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project.

Where the House are prohibited book advances because of potential conflicts of interest, the Senate did not. Even though the payments are not illegal, the appearance of it could create some problems. Smells like another Clinton Scandal. Way to go Hillary!

2

She’s already written and published succesfully before. Her advance could be completely based on that fact alone, not to mention her name value which will sell books. Nice slur on a good woman.

3

Yeah, really… some scandal. What, she’s going to push through subsidies for book publishers?

Gimme a break…

stoid

4

Cannot grasp the rabid hatred some people seem to have for Ms. Clinton. She ain’t no Eleanor Roosevelt, but, jeez…

Keep in mind that the Clinton’s aren’t rich. They aren’t going to go on food stamps anytime soon, but they have legal bills that would crush an ordinary person. And do we recall how they got those legal bills? A $40 million, five year, relentless investigation that managed to turn up a fib about a blow job. Do you think the same level of investigation, Ken Starr and all, would leave “Landslide” George smelling like a rose? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

She needs the bucks. A first term Senator, in a Senate with the likes of Lott and Gramm in it, has little or no influence to sell. She will likely end up with the likes of the Senate Investigatory Committee on Daffodil Production in Sri Lanka and Upper Volta. Ahhh, the flower of Southern Gentility, the gracious deference to the fair sex!

Cut her some slack, for cryin out loud, at least until she actually does something. Sheeeeeesh!

5

Didn’t Gingrich have this problem? I cought the part about the House and Senate having different rules, but I would think that the ethics would be the same.

I think Gingrich had to turn down a million bucks, why should hillary be any different? I say all politicans should EARN the money on the back end, let them negotiate a percentage of the profits.

6

Correction: The $8 million is not for *An Invitation to the White House * as stated in the OP, but for an as yet unwritten memoir dealing with her eight years in the White House as first lady. (One would think it should be seven years because the eighth was spent in New York campaigning. But maybe I’m quibbling.) Sorry for the misinformation!

The deal was signed on Friday December 15, 2000 with Simon & Schuster.

7

I remember this scandal. I think it would be in terribly poor taste to answer for Stoidela, so may she could clue us in on this one.

Okay Stoidela: Ethically speaking, why should Hillary be treated differently then that slimy Newt?

8

it sounds like a dumb rule, whomever it is applied to.

I still don’t get what the big deal is. She gets massive dough from Simon and Schuster…what’s the problem? What’s the scandal? Someone clue me, because I’m without one.

stoid

9

I think the point is to discourage public officials (many of whom wield enormous power) from receiving “gifts” that the average person would not be eligible for.

Who really knows where the money comes from. Stoidela makes the point that it is “only” a book publisher. I have a feeling that things are a lot more complicated than that. In today’s world companies are commonly just part of a larger corporation, or the board members are on boards of other companies.

Or maybe it is just a campaign contribution that would not be allowed any other way.
Who knows?

It certainly leaves open the door to mischief though.

As an aside Stoidela…

How do you feel about campaign finance reform?

10

Hey, Stoidela…

You didn’t seem to address the question posed to you at all…

Why is it Newt Gingrich had ethical troubles with HIS book deal (actually, he had to pay a hefty fine, as I recall,) and yet you seem to have no problem with Hillary’s as-yet-unearned 8 million dollar book advance?

Were you so exasperated with Newt’s detractors when they were trying to screw him to the wall for doing exactlly the same thing? What was HE gonna do? Push through subsidies for booksellers? Give me a break.

(As an aside, you don’t think publishers have an interest in all kinds of laws before congress, from intellectual property protection to tarriffs to environmental laws affecting the costs of lumber (to make the pulp used to make paper) to tax policy?)

Looks like your buddies on the left have painted themselves into a tight, tight corner on this one. Are you standing in that corner with them?

11

Nah Stoid admits shes a hypocrite so her opinion doesent have to have any purchase in reality.

12

and post this before I read the OP. Are you possibly looking for the word graft? AFAIK, grift and graft can both be used to describe ill-gotten gains, but, while graft is a quid pro quo-type of thing where the payer knows what he’s buying from the payee (usually political favors), grift involves someone being hoodwinked or defrauded into paying over money and getting nothing in return.

13

Since this is a huge advance for an unwritten book, I do think grift may be the appropriate word.

With a full-time, well-paid legislature, maybe outside “employment” should be proscribed completely: no “advances on royalties,” no “consulting fees,” no “honoraria” for speaking engagements, etc.

14

this is not an issue for me either way. I don’t even remember Newt’s experience, much less having been on one side or the other of it.

I have yet to hear anything distrubing about this. The soon to be former first lady of the US got an $8 million book deal to write about her experience. So what…she’s not allowed to make money? Or there is some limit to how much she is allowed to make?

This isn’t a gift, it is payment for a book she is going to write. It’s a big payment, but it isn’t unheard of.

I remain unclear as to the problem.

stoid

15

A bit of history is in order here, get the whole Newt/Hillary perspective.

In the bad old days, Senator Fogbottom would “write” a book, oh, say, The Principles of Sound Governance". Therein would be found page after page of boiler plate platitudues and humbuggery. No matter.

A deal is struck with a publishing company, likely the same company that just brought out Senator Throckmorton’s “Sound Governance: The 7 Principles”. Senators being persons of enormous prestige, the tome is question being so excellent, and the fix being in, an exceptionally generous portion is ascribed to author’s royalties. The deed is done, trees sacrifice thier lives to futher the cause of self-righteous bloviation.

The CEO of MammonSoft, upon examination of this most excellent tome, cries out “By golly, this is the sort of book I want everyone from middle management on up to read! I am going to order 10,000 copies! What a coincidence! Here is an order form from the publisher, right here on my desk!”

A churlish fellow, much like myself, might infer that because Senator Schieskopf is Chairman of the Avarice Committee, which regulates the air supply of Moloch Enterprises, such an arrangement is rather too cozy.

Because this affectionate little dance was so accepted for so many years, things tended to get a little sloppy. Wright , the guy with the office that Newt wanted, had gotten sloppy, and Newt tore him a new asshole. Hence the “ethics” rules about authorship, which, if you examine them, are shapeless, gormless and clueless.

My point, and indeed I have one, is viability. There is a fair to middling chance Hilary’s book will sell, because of who Hilary Clinton is, not who she’s going to be. Most likely, she would have gotten the same sort of deal if she hadn’t run for senator at all! Half an hour on “Oprah” and she’s solid gold.

Newt’s book was viable because of who he was going to be. Before this point in time, he was a public non-entity.

(Sort of took a stab at reading “1945”, Newt’s “speculative fiction” book of the same time. Lets just say he made “Star Trek” novelizations look like Nabokov. I understand that the last 10,000 copies to come off the printer were loaded straight onto trucks and hauled to the pulping plant to be rendered into toilet paper!)

16

Could you provide any evidence of anything similar to the situation in your rambling hypothetical situation ever happening? My opinion is that Hillary is bound by the Senate’s ethics rules, and that regardless of the situation with Newt or the reasons for the rules, she is only obliged to follow the rules that apply to her. Assuming that this is, in fact, a book deal and not a cover for an outright bribe (an assumption that seems very reasonable to make at the present), of course.

17

Hillary is in a bit of a special position because she was First Lady. There is reasonable precedent for First Ladies to make some pretty good dough writing their memoirs, so I think the rap against Hillary is a bit out of place - other than the fact that it helps expose her hypocrisy.

But the overall principle remains that you don’t want Senators and Congressmen to profit massively from their time in office, even if the profit is ‘legitimate’, and doesn’t result in their using political influence to benefit their publisher. Why? Because the promise of huge profit will attract the wrong sorts of people to public office.

I think the U.S. would be a lot better off if it could go back to the old notion of the government being run by citizens who do a term or two and go back into private life. Government shouldn’t be seen as a lifelong career, nor should it be seen as a path to riches and glory.

18

Please, when was it EVER really like that, and in what country? Not ours OR yours.

19

Smells like more obsessing from the paranoid fringe.
Can’t you guys get a new obsession. Cuckling over rabid Clinton hating has lost its amusement value.

20

I would like to see the Senate adopt the same ban on book deals as the House. I believe the potential for abuse is too great*. That said, I do not see anything in the present situation regarding Senator-elect Clinton’s deal which suggests that it is an instance of abuse- and I generally tend to be rather suspicious of her. If Colin Powell got $6 million and the Pope got $8.5 million, I don’t see her $8 million as out of line. Frankly I’m surprised that she didn’t get more than the Pope. I’m sure there is a great potential market for a book from her about her White House years (even her enemies will want a copy to pore through and find things to attack).

Just one minor point I’d like to ask about- since Mrs. Clinton is not yet a Senator- does the House ban on book deals apply to Representatives-elect or only actual sitting Representatives?

*Re the potential for abuse: waterj2 asked:

I believe Rep. Jim Wright of Texas was deemed to be using book deals in pretty much the manner described. his book was by all critical accounts, damn close to unreadable, but lobbyists, corporate and labor interests, etc. would buy copies by the truckload. I don’t recall any other cases, but believe the ban was instituted because of a fear that once Wright showed them how to do it, they would all try to take advantage of it; especially when Wright’s nemesis, Newt Gingrich, got a huge advance from Rupert Murdock (IIRC).