I’d just like to flesh out elucidator’s hypothetical book-deal scenario with a couple of concrete examples. In 1989, Newt Gingrich managed to secure the resignation of House Speaker Jim Wright for accepting a huge royalty return on one of his books. Then, in 1994, when Gingrich himself was Speaker, it became apparent that Gingrich himself had accepted a $4.5 million advance from Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins press (Murdoch, of course, is also the owner of FauxNews). More recently, Tom Daschle reputedly took a $500,000 advance for a book about his two years as majority leader in the Senate.
One thing you can say about O’Reilly though is that for whatever reason, his book is published by a subsidiary of Random House, rather than another one of Murdoch’s media tentacles.
If I recall correctly, O’Reilly refuses to discuss how much his own advance was. After all, he’s not a(n elected) politician.
This is not correct. Wright’s troubles stemmed from his end run around House limits on speaking fees by having groups inviting him to speak make bulk purchases of his (totally obscure) book instead of direct payments.
I can understand your motivation (or that of whoever fed you the information) in presenting it the way you did - to make Gingrich seem like a hypocrite. Still, fact are facts.
Seem like a hypocrite? What droll irony! As much as I appreciate it, I hasten to warn you that such subtle underplay may well be lost in the clamor of the pit.
Aw, you’re right, Izzy. I shouldn’t have focused solely upon the Gingrich book deal. It’s true that he didn’t run the same royalty-kickback routine that Wright did, as I did not say above. Gingrich instead got a $4.5 million advance for his 1994 book. Of course, back in 1984, before Wright had even published his book, Gingrich published a book using what looks suspiciously like campaign contributions.
In fact, he was charged with eighty-fucking-four ethics violations which included hiring outside consultants to formulate the Republican political agenda, making “misstatements” to the Ethics Committee itself, and using tax-deductible donations for political goals.
Yes, he weaseled out of 83 of those 84 charges, so I suppose he ranks right up there with Bill Clinton as far as his innocence goes. Speaking of which, did I mention that Gingrich was fucking his intern while howling for Bill Clinton’s head? He divorced his second wife and married young Ms. Bissek in 2000. Gingrich also delivered divorce papers to his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from uterine cancer surgery so that he could marry his second wife, with whom he was cheating at the time.
And if you want to go straight to the black heart of hypocrisy, Gingrich almost single-handedly invented the practice of giving speeches to an empty House in order to make it appear to CSPAN viewers as if he was actually being listened to by his fellow Representatives.
Newt Gingrich is amongst the most hypocritical scum to ever slither through the halls of Congress. And nobody “feeds” me this stuff. It grows like mushrooms on the cowshit that is the man’s vile reputation, ripe for the picking.
Sorry, Lib, I haven’t checked into the thread for a while. I concede that you showed some evidence that the DNC may have purchased a bulk order. I thought I did acknowledge your cite with my curt “ok” but obviously I should have been more clear about acknowledging that I was too categorical in my claims.
FTR, my intention was not so much to defend Hillary but to call bullshit on O’Reilly’s implication that minus the DNC’s bulk order (still to be proven definitively) he would be selling more books than Hillary. i actually don’t think it matters who sells more books and book sales don’t prove anything about who’s right or wrong. I just think that O’Reilly is being petty and obsessive about this thing. He just can’t seem to accept that his political bete noirs have sold more books than him, especially after he shot his mouth off about how he would outsell everybody. Honestly, he should just be a man and admit that Hillary’s book generated more interest than anybody thought it would.
He should take a page from Tucker Carlson who admitted he was wrong with humor and good grace. I also think that Carlson wrote a better book than either of them even though his sales were nowhere near the same.
Big sales does not equal quality or validity. The DaVinci Code is a giant bestseller and it’s total crap. I don’t think that Hillary’s book is all that compelling or revealing but it sold a lot of copies. Michael Moore sells a lot of books but I’ve been persuaded (largely from reading this MB) that Moore is every bit the dishonest demagogue that O’Reilly is. I might call him the left-wing Coulter but she’s in a class of her own.
Bill is such a self-important crybaby that he can’t admit he’s wrong about anything. So he got outsold. It’s no big deal, it’s his third book. The mystique is worn off. There tends to be a law oof vanishing returns with these kinds of books. After a while it’s the same old bullshit in every book. Bill still sold an impressive number of books. Why can’t he just be happy with that.?
Anyway, sorry about not acknowledging you more explicitly, Lib. I think you posted a valid cite.
Thanks for responding, my friend. Your points are all valid. MM and BO are two peas in a pod. They’re like creationists and astrologers, always in search of an angle that they hope will make observations match up with their assumptions.
Can I ask? Has Hillary responded to O’Reilly’s ranting? Does she even care? Has she said anything about this?
I kinda picture her laughing at him and then just moving on, going to lunch, attending Senate meetings, calling her daughter, . . . etc . . . and never giving him a second thought. Except to laugh at him again.
Just in case anyone wonders, the OP is now banned because he is WSLer, who’s a very slow learner. This thread is closed, as it’s not really discussing the OP anymore anyway.