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Opinion: Poor Sarah Palin; Nowhere near as rich as critics say

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Acquiring a lot of money didn’t used to be a bad thing in America, even for Democrats. But now that President Barack Obama has got his and suggests there really ought to be a limit to wealth, many are implying that acquiring mucho moohla as retired Republican Gov. Sarah Palin has done -- and is doing -- is somehow, well, sort of un-American.

When it comes to money and people and the combination thereof, there is no greater authority than Forbes. So in true Forbes tradition, diligent Dirk Smillie set out to estimate just how many endangered U.S. dollars not yet in China have been acquired by Alaskan Palin since her gubernatorial resignation almost exactly one year ago. His results will disappoint Palin’s hypocritical wealthy critics.

As a private citizen now, Palin is no longer required to publicly report her income. And there’s no way in Skagway she’s going to volunteer such info to anyone, let alone the likes of ABC or NBC News.

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Noted Palin un-lover Norah O’Donnell, who’s not exactly pulling down homeless income from NBC, recently threw out the number of $12 million earnings in the past 12 months for the mother of five and wife of an oil field union member and snow-machine racer.

According to Smillie, Not!

In fact, not even close.

Try around half of that. Maybe $10 mill max. More likely seven. Still an attractive chunk of change for most of us not named George Soros or Barbra Streisand.

Smillie talks to an inside source and carefully pores over Palin’s public reports, ‘Going Rogue’ book advance, likely royalty earnings on 2.2 million ongoing sales minus the advance, rough Fox News commentary compensation (BTW, Palin will talk immigration Friday evening on the ‘O’Reilly Factor’), estimated Discovery Channel documentary dollars and a dozen speeches so far for around $100k each.

Meanwhile today, Palin’s SARAHPac sent another e-mail appeal out seeking donations to continue her travels and donations in support of ‘common-sense conservatives.’ She said:

We have to make the choice as a nation between continuing on our destructive path of deficit spending that is moving us towards economic disaster, and saying ‘enough is enough’. If the Democrats are allowed to maintain their large majorities in the House and Senate, our economy will continue to struggle under the looming threat of tax hikes, the scope of the Federal Government will continue to expand, and the national debt will spiral out of control.

So, don’t cry for her, Alaska. And the good news for Palin, whatever her last year’s earnings, they were sufficient to afford that backyard fence back in Wasilla to guard against the transient peeping Joe next door.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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