Hail Mary, full of cash

Mary Cheney got a million bucks for her autobiography/anti-Dem diatribe. How many copies has she sold? Six thousand. A book filled with dog food recipes probably would have sold better.

Of course, a lot of people have said for a long time that publishing has become the mechanism of choice for political pay-offs. In this case, the purpose of the exercise would be three-fold:

1. To stuff yet more cash into the Cheney family wallet,

2. To add fuel to the national discussion over gay marriage (which distracts the public from the administration's failed wars), and

3. To give Mary a chance to spew venom at Dems on the teevee.

How can you tell that an "arranged" pay-off has occurred? Here's one sure-fire indicator.

Cheney's book was published by Threshold Editions, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster. Threshold is run by Mary Matalin, James Carville's despicable wife. (Frankly, I've had quite enough of Jimmy-boy as well.) And...

...and let's hold it right there. In a country overflowing with brilliant, under-employed English majors, what the hell did Mary Matalin ever do to score a gig like that at a major publisher? Think about it. This fact alone should tell you that something odd is going on in the book business.

In the real publishing world, any executive who made a million-dollar boo-boo would soon find a very deep footprint on his or her ass as he or she went sailing out the front door. If Matalin keeps her gig, you may safely presume that this whole slick trick was never anything more than another Cheney money-grab, and that Simon & Schuster won't lose a penny.

Usually, a mysterious bulk buyer scoops up twenty or thirty thousand copies, in order to give a conservative volume an artificial lift onto the bestseller lists. Wonder why that didn't occur in this case?