Bristol Palin has reached the age of majority, and as is customary in her family, it's time for her to start exploiting her celebrity:
Bristol Palin is hitting the speakers' circuit and will command between $15,000 and $30,000 for each appearance, Palin family attorney Thomas Van Flein said Monday.
Given her current bitter custody battle with her never-husband Levi Johnston over their son Tripp, I'm guessing the extra income will probably help her case.
Except that's not the real reason she's hitting the speaking circuit...
First, let's take a look at what she'll be getting 30k to talk about. According to her entry at Single Source Speakers, her "programs" (event categories) will include:
Abstinence, Conference, Fundraiser, Pro-Life, Special Event/Holiday, Women's, Youth
Okay, so she's gonna rake it in talking about abstinence. I honestly don't have a problem with that. Cautionary tales from people who made mistakes are not an inherently bad thing. But I'm wondering exactly what message is being sent here: Don't make the mistake I did and become a single mom, because then you'll...go on the speaker's circuit and make thirty grand a pop! Woo-hoo!
But the real lesson she learned from her mother, and the probable reason for the speaking gigs, is revealed a bit further down the page:
She recently appeared on the ABC drama "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" and is working on her first book.
That's right, yet another Palin book is in the works. I've gotta hand it to these folks, they've got a tight operation. This is rapidly becoming a family corporate behemoth to rival the Osmond family or the Olsen twins. We've got books, multiple TV series, PACs, speaking tours. I can only speculate that an animated series is somewhere in our future.
Can there be any doubt left? Sarah Palin was never a politician whose career happened to go south. Her abrupt resignation should have clued us in to that. Real politicians have to be dragged kicking and screaming from office.
She has never been more than a celebrity waiting to happen, and her (brief) political career was always intended as a stepping stone to that, nothing more. And now she's getting the rest of the family involved. She's building a celebrity family dynasty.
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Commentor lineatus nails it:
Ironic that between 'em, they'll have written more books than Sarah's ever read.