The Savaging of Sarah Wasn’t Worth It

If the caricature of Republicans as heartless capitalists with cash registers instead of souls is accurate then they should gleefully accept prodigals Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley back into the fold. Because I absolutely believe that their personal attacks on Sarah Palin were nothing personal. It was nothing more than a money grab.

I’d imagine the pressure to sell books is enormous. The top book publishers have a lot riding on each title. And if your book doesn’t sell you don’t get to write books for the top publishers anymore. It’s capitalism in its purest form. And that’s why I think Peggy Noonan’s and Chris Buckley’s savaging of Sarah Palin was simply about selling books. It was about media exposure for them to hawk their books.

Patriotic Grace came out in October. Oddly, that’s around the time Noonan discovered that Sarah Palin was a vulgarization of the political system after first having praised her. And she went on every show she could find running Sarah Palin down while holding up a copy of her book which ironically was called, “Patriotic Grace.”

Christopher Buckley’s book “Supreme Courtship” came out in September. Hmmm. Odd that Buckley had praised and pushed McCain in the primaries but then around the time his book came out he publicly endorsed Obama. And voila! He was suddenly on every television show in the mainstream media holding his book up. Wow! What a coincidence.

These two are savvy enough to know that the way Republicans get exposure and good press is by turning on their own. Hey, it worked for John McCain for about two decades until he ran for President and he couldn’t attack his own party anymore.

However their schemes don’t appear to have worked. Buckley’s book the day after the election was ranked 697th on Amazon.com. Noonan’s book was 499th. Heck, maybe it would’ve been worse if they hadn’t attacked their own parties. I don’t know. Maybe that’s pretty good. But as someone who has read and bought everything Noonan wrote and has bought Buckley’s books in the past, you can count me out. Never again.