Until John McCain, for some inexplicable reason, plucked her from the relative obscurity of one of the least known states of America, Sarah Palin hasn’t half got an inflated idea of her own importance and worth.
She was relatively unknown, even in the United States, except by perhaps the 700,000 or so souls that populate Alaska where, as governor she lived on an income of £80,734 a year.
She has, however, very rapidly managed to get herself a set of expensive tastes and acquired some pretty impressive trappings of celebrity and influence.
She now commands fees of up to $100,000 for just one speech, and her engagements are controlled by her minders in minute detail.
Like some sort of superstar she demands all sorts of little, and some larger, comforts to make her trip go smoothly. According to the Guardian this includes that she have two bottles of still water and bendable straws placed near the lectern when she is speaking; that she be flown from her home in Alaska to the event on first-class commercial tickets or in a private jet of at least the size of a L
ear 60; and that she be driven from the airport to the venue in professionally licensed SUVs or, failing that, in black town cars.
Her hotel room must be booked under an alias, for security reasons, and must include a one-bedroom suite and two single rooms. There must be a laptop computer and printer fully charged with paper in the room. And the hotel must be rated as deluxe.
So, it’s not only UK politicians that think themselves a bit above the ordinary person. Of course, most of them have actually be elected rather than rejected when they get above themselves to this extent. But details of this lifestyle make it a little clearer why Ms Palin gave up her governorship in mid –term to cash in on what might have been 5 minutes of fame last year and play out her role as comedienne for the tea bag party, and John McCain.
Sure is a long way from Juneau!
Photograph: Sarah Palin; Juneau (population 31,000), capital of Alaska
She was relatively unknown, even in the United States, except by perhaps the 700,000 or so souls that populate Alaska where, as governor she lived on an income of £80,734 a year.
She has, however, very rapidly managed to get herself a set of expensive tastes and acquired some pretty impressive trappings of celebrity and influence.
She now commands fees of up to $100,000 for just one speech, and her engagements are controlled by her minders in minute detail.
Like some sort of superstar she demands all sorts of little, and some larger, comforts to make her trip go smoothly. According to the Guardian this includes that she have two bottles of still water and bendable straws placed near the lectern when she is speaking; that she be flown from her home in Alaska to the event on first-class commercial tickets or in a private jet of at least the size of a L
ear 60; and that she be driven from the airport to the venue in professionally licensed SUVs or, failing that, in black town cars.Her hotel room must be booked under an alias, for security reasons, and must include a one-bedroom suite and two single rooms. There must be a laptop computer and printer fully charged with paper in the room. And the hotel must be rated as deluxe.
So, it’s not only UK politicians that think themselves a bit above the ordinary person. Of course, most of them have actually be elected rather than rejected when they get above themselves to this extent. But details of this lifestyle make it a little clearer why Ms Palin gave up her governorship in mid –term to cash in on what might have been 5 minutes of fame last year and play out her role as comedienne for the tea bag party, and John McCain.
Sure is a long way from Juneau!
Photograph: Sarah Palin; Juneau (population 31,000), capital of Alaska
He plucked her?
ReplyDeleteThat explains a lot...
Erm.... does it Conan? LOL. OK maybe it explains something..... but, I don't think there is anything in the world which really explains Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, I think it was a huge mistake on McCain's apart. He is an elderly man with a poor health record and she would have been one of his heartbeats away from the presidency and the codes, and.... oh lord, it doesn't stand thinking about.....
Can you imagine her as the first woman president? Not impossible, she clearly doesn’t think so.
ReplyDeleteScary stuff Munguin. And we thought Thatcher was mad. (Well ok she was, but not as mad as this box of spare parts.)
ReplyDeleteThere were reports this week that she has earned $12,000,000 US (by "conservative" estimate) since leaving the Alaska governorship. So she may be having second thoughts about the presidency which only pays a salary of $400,000. However the amenities are nice.
ReplyDeleteThere has been considerable speculation about those bendable straws. I wonder just had badly some old straight straws would throw her off her game? (Of course, the president gets all the bendable straws he/she wants.)
LOL @ Danny... a straigh straw might well make her forget on which hand she had written the basic tenets of her life... the principles she holds dear....and lives by...
ReplyDeleteYou know you should never ever trust a straight straw.
$12 000 000 US... in a year .... what would someone like her do with that?
An' worse, millions o' mad Americans thought so.
ReplyDeleteWell Tris..I suppose that she could buy "his and hers" moose hunting helicopters. But she could only use those in Alaska. And I'm not sure she's been back there lately.
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder about that first class air fare from Alaska that she demands. Since she is seldom if ever there, maybe she just pockets the difference...LOL.
Sophia:
ReplyDeleteFortunately for the world the majority of Americans thought that the Obama Biden ticket was the safer for mankind... and so far they seem to have made a fairly good choice.
Let's hope the Scots can be trusted to make as good a choice and vote for Scottish Champions in the next election, so we can get something done about the mess we live in.
LOL again @Danny....
ReplyDeleteHis and hers moose hunting helicopeters sound like a plan to me...
Yep, I wondered when Pain would be likely to be found in Alaska these days. Maybe she does pocket the difference. She wouldn't be the first.