Blogroll

The power of politics

How pervasive is the power of politics? About as pervasive as you can get, as evidenced by word that Sarah Palin is going to be at the local B&N for a book-signing on December 6.

Palin is unquestionably the highest profile “author” to hit the local B&N. At least in my memory (which admittedly gets worse every day), the only other “names” to sign there in the recent past are Mike Farrell in June 2008, George McGovern (who I believe has appeared there a couple times) and Tom Daschle. I think the native son status of the latter two, though, might disqualify them to some extent.

So it takes a quasi-political promotion trip for B&N to get a bestselling author to the city for a signing. I wonder how many people who present books for her to sign will be clutching a receipt for their $8.98 copy from Walmart online?


Celebrity distorts democracy by giving the rich, beautiful and famous more authority than they deserve.

Maureen Dowd, NYT, Sept. 10, 1995

Comments are closed.