The Latest Nothingburger from the Anti-Palin Left

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Here we go again. ABC News, after going over SarahPAC's FEC disclosure reports with a fine-tooth comb, figured that there was a story in the details:

Sarah Palin has been using her political action committee to buy up thousands of copies of her book, "Going Rogue," in order to mail copies of the memoir to her donors, newly filed campaign records show.

The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate had her political organization spend more than $63,000 on what her reports describe as "books for fundraising donor fulfillment." The payments went to Harper Collins, her publisher, and in some instances to HSP Direct, a Virginia-based direct mail fundraising firm that serves a number of well-known conservative politicians and pundits.

Yes, SarahPAC, to encourage donations, for a time was offering free, autographed copies of her book for a donation of $100. No big deal, but you wouldn't know from the hysterical rantings on the anti-Palin hate blogs of the moonbat-o-sphere. The Leftist bloggers, who clutch at every straw they can find to fashion their straw men, now claim that Sarah Palin's PAC was buying copies of her book to drive the sales numbers up. They must have SarahPAC confused with labor unions, which are notorious for buying large lots of books written by "progressive" pols. 

Ed Morrissey strikes a match and puts it to that straw man:

Um … so what? Palin isn’t a candidate for office (yet), and since each book retails for $13.50 on Amazon, that amounts to less than 4700 books — hardly an effort to pull a Dianetics-like dodge and artificially keeping it on bestseller lists. Making the book an incentive for larger donations is not only a no-brainer, it’s just about SOP with plenty of other politicians as well..

Even if SarahPAC had been able to buy the books at half that price, we would still be talking about less than ten thousand copies -- a drop in the bucket -- of a book that has sold millions of copies.

As Freeper kristann reminds us, the DNC did the same thing with Hillary Clinton's book in 2004:

Newsmax reported in early 2004 about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party giving away copies of Living History to donors. There was no controversy raised by the media back then like they are trying to do with Palin:

The Democratic National Committee is "giving away" copies of Sen. Hillary Clinton's book "Living History" to any contributor who ponies up $29.95 per month till Election Day - a move that raises questions about whether the party has made bulk purchases of Clinton's book.

SNIP

"As a Member of Presidential Partners," DNC chief Terry McAuliffe promises in the Web site's message, "you will receive: A copy of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, Living History. The first 500 books will be personally signed by Senator Clinton!"

SNIP

The DNC's Hillary book offer coincides with the senator's own attempt to boost book sales through her political action committee, HILLPAC.

On HILLPAC's Web site, "FriendsofHillary.com," potential donors are offered "your own personalized copy of this historic book" in exchange for "making a contribution to Friends of Hillary."

SNIP

HILLPAC says the senator does not collect royalties on any books sold through FriendsofHillary.

The media (ABC News, National Journal, Politics Daily, Seattle Post Intelligencer, NY Daily News, MSNBC, Media Bistro, and Salon) are going potty over Sarah Palin using her book as an incentive for donations to her PAC. A search of news sites shows that as of this writing none of the outlets attacking Palin are reporting she is only following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton.

Well, of course not! After all, they have a double standard to uphold...

Capt. Ed sums it up nicely:

The big news here is that Palin’s PAC had at least 4600 donors in the fourth quarter who gave enough money to warrant the incentive gift. Otherwise, this is a big nothingburger.

More from Jerry Wilson at Goldfish & Clowns here.

- JP