There are flops, almighty flops and then there are books by Mary Cheney. Despite saturation media coverage, network interviews, cable interviews, blanket newspaper profiles, blog support, podcast interviews, the book "My Turn" had a very low first week’s sales of 2,445. Last week, a grand total of 574 books were sold. Not too shabby for a first author with not a huge amount to say. But recall that this manuscript cost its publishers a cool $1 million. The publisher therefore spent around $170 for every book sold without even counting the marketing budget. In Mary Matalin’s case, it just confirms what we already know about Bush Republicans. Their greatest skill is in spending vast amounts of other people’s money on relatives or cronies.

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