Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama: Palin book shows need for memoir public option
By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
November 17, 2009
News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.
Decrying the lack of "choice and competition" in the U.S. memoir market, President Obama today backed a House bill to create a "single-writer public option" autobiography to serve the needs of an estimated 47 million Americans who can't afford Sarah Palin's $28.99 hardcover "Going Rogue."
Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the measure at $1.7 trillion over 10 years, the president said it would "not add a single dime to the deficit" because funding would come from a 55 percent tax on sales of "Going Rogue" as well as on any future Palin books, radio and TV shows, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, holographic exercise videos, limited edition signature snow machines and fishing boats, and anything else employing the name or image of Sarah Palin.
"The fact that Palin's book has so dominated the market that it was No. 1 in the nation weeks before its release," Obama said, "demonstrates that the American memoir system is broken."
The president blamed "greedy corporate fat cats at HarperCollins for a system that discriminates against everyone from the indigent to the illiterate, who, through no fault of their own, can't afford Palin's book, and couldn't read it even if they had the money."
The "public option" memoir, as Obama envisions it, would contain few words, many pictures and a cover price that varies according the customer's willingness to pay.
"No one would be forced to buy the public option memoir," said Obama. "If you like 'Going Rogue', you can keep it ... although I can't imagine anyone doing that after all the government safety warnings we'll air during prime-time TV programs."
The president's plan calls for a panel of experts to determine the subject of the public-option memoir.
"Obviously," he added, "they'll want to choose someone who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the world's most beloved and admired figures. Of course, the choice is in the hands of an expert panel ... kind of like the Nobel Peace Prize committee."
Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world's leading family-friendly news satire source.
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