Obama: Cashing In or Selling Out?

I just wasn't sure about this story when it first broke, and I'm still rather up in the air. It seems that newly elected Democratic superstar Barack Obama has inked a deal with Crown Publishing which will pay him 1.9 million dollars. It's broken down into two payments of 850,000 dollars for two books, plus 200,000 (which will go to charity) for a children's book to be written jointly by Obama, his wife, and his children.

My attention was first drawn to this story by Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forrest. His reaction, to be blunt, was one of utter horror. (And let's remember, Dave is a dedicated liberal.)

It just stinks. We fought the battle for campaign contribution limits. We fought this when Gingrich got a book deal. Politicians taking money stinks -- book deals, speaking fees, whatever -- there is just no way around it. ANY politician. This is not about free speech. He can communicate all he wants. He can write all the books he has time for as a Senator. But he should not be accepoting $1.9 million from ANYONE, under ANY circumstances. Even if he didn't accept an "advance" and only took the money made by actually writing and then selling the books, that is what Speaker of the House Wright had to resign for. IT'S THE MONEY NOT THE BOOK! How do we justify criticism of Tom Delay or any of the others if we say it is OK for Obama to accept $1.9 million?

To be honest, when I first heard about the story I really didn't have much of a reaction at all. I suppose my thoughts were more along the line of Outside the Beltway. I simply don't have a problem with politicians making some money on the side by way of writing books, provided they are "legitimate" books on subjects of interest, published by known companies.

Speaking fees are another matter. I tend to frown when I hear about some of those deals, though not all. There are certainly times when universities, think tanks, etc. may want a politician to come address their members and share their thoughts on topics of interest. There are also, unfortunately, large companies which have offered elected officials "speaking engagements" which really turned out to be extremely high paying luxury trips (expenses included, of course) where there seems to be no real point to the "speaking" except for the official to get a bunch of cash and a free trip to some nice location. I do not, however, see a good way (aside from the nearly defunct ethics committee) to filter those down to the "good and the bad."

This will, however, provide some of Barack's more conservative critics with ammunition to come after him. The Corner Kids were on top of the story right away, with the short but clear comment, "Well... that didn't take long, did it?"

I think that I'm going to need to hear a better reason as to why Obama shouldn't be able to write a book (and be paid for his efforts) before I begin to chide him.