Sarah Palin's rider

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

horrible c***

 

For a woman who until last July was a fairly unknown governor of one of the most obscure states in America, existing on an official income of $125,000 (£80,734) a year, Sarah Palin has 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.

 

Those details include demands that she have two bottles of still water and bendable straws placed near the lectern from which she delivers her speeches; that she be flown from her home in Alaska to wherever the event takes place on first-class commercial tickets or in a private jet of at least the size of a Lear 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.

 

We now know such arcane details of the life of Sarah Palin in her new incarnation as megastar courtesy of two intrepid college students at Stanislaus, a branch of California State University in Turlock, California.

 

Palin has been booked through her agency, the Washington Speakers Bureau, to front a fundraiser for the college's foundation on 25 June.

 

The students, Alicia Lewis and Ashli Briggs, claim to have been tipped off last week to strange movements in the campus administration building.

 

Officials of the administration had been under pressure from Democratic politicians and others to reveal the precise terms on which Palin's services were being secured, and the rumour was that administrators were busily shredding documents to avoid disclosure.

 

Lewis and Briggs decided to investigate. Finding the administration building locked, they claim to have seen bags full of complete and shredded documents being carried out and dumped in a bin.

 

When the coast was clear, they rifled through the bags and say they found the final six pages of a nine-page Washington Speakers Bureau contract.

 

It does not mention Palin by name, but refers to the speaker's "high profile" and need for security "of the highest order".It stipulates in exhaustive detail every aspect of the engagement. If a private jet is used it "MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger for West Coast Events; or, a Hawker 800 or larger for East Coast Events and both are subject to the Speaker's approval".

 

The bendable straws are a requirement that goes unexplained.

 

On the back of the discovery of the document, the attorney general of California, Jerry Brown, has announced an investigation into the way the Stanislaus Foundation is conducting its affairs with Palin after suggestions that it is paying her up to $75,000 for the event.

 

There has been no confirmation or denial from the Washington Speakers Bureau or the foundation whether the contract is genuine. The foundation has countered that as all its $20m assets came from private donations it was not required to make the same public disclosures as the university to which it is attached.

[Kite]

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