State Department buys $70,000 worth of Obama books

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Times:

The State Department has bought more than $70,000 worth of books authored by President Obama, sending out copies as Christmas gratuities and stocking “key libraries” around the world with “Dreams from My Father” more than a decade after its release.

The U.S. Embassy in Egypt, for instance, spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of Mr. Obama’s best-selling 1995 memoir. Six weeks earlier, the embassy had placed another order for the same book for more than $9,000, federal purchasing records show.

About the same time, halfway around the world, the U.S. Embassy in South Korea had the same idea and spent more than $6,000 for copies of “Dreams from My Father.”

One month later, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, spent more than $3,800 for hardcover copies of the Indonesian version of Mr. Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” records show.

A review of the expenditures in a federal database did not reveal any examples of State Department purchases of books by former Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. The purchases of Mr. Obama’s literary work mostly, but not always, took place in the months after Mr. Obama captured the White House.

Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group, said if the federal government is looking to cut costs, eliminating purchases of Mr. Obama’s books is a good place to start.

“It’s inappropriate for U.S. taxpayer dollars to be spent on this,” she said. “This sounds like propaganda.”

But State Department spokesman Noel Clay said the book purchases followed regular government procurement rules. He said diplomats have long used books as a way to help broker talks on important foreign-policy matters.

“The structure and the presidency of the United States is an integral component of representing the United States overseas,” Mr. Clay said. “We often use books to engage key audiences in discussions of foreign policy.”

He also said books are purchased to stock the State Department’s “information resource centers,” which he said are located around the world and provide books about U.S. coverage of issues such as culture, history and values.

“We also provide key library collections with books about the United States,” he said.
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Gotta sell the message...

[Pepper]

I was going to buy everyone on TRR a copy, now I know why they are all on backorder.

[cudjo]

I was going to buy everyone on TRR a copy, now I know why they are all on backorder.

 

 

You're just all heart in trying to help our intellectual development with such a fantastic book

[Pepper]

I amaze myself constantly, Cudjo!

[Rheo]

Republican Congressman to Obama: Please Stop Buying Your Own Books With Taxpayer Money…

 

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) wants President Obama to give back the royalties on books purchased by the State Department, he said Tuesday.

 

“Imagine you’re in a foreign country, you’re visiting a foreign embassy, they hand you a very political book written by the president and you realize the president’s getting royalties on. It just, symbolically but also even mechanically, it doesn’t seem right,” Schweikert said on Fox News. “This is one of those occasions where, on the scale of what’s going on in Greece and Afghanistan, it may be very small, but the symbolism’s pretty powerful.”

He sent an open letter to Obama on Monday asking Obama to cease purchasing copies of his books using taxpayer money, and remit any royalty payments based off previous State Department purchases to the Treasury Department.

 

“Receiving royalties from government purchases of your book is exactly the type of out-of-touch Washington behavior that the American people are weary of and will no longer tolerate,” the letter reads. “Whether this has been done in the past or not, it should be stopped immediately.”

[SrWoodchuck]

I'm waiting for his post-presidential coloring book. [How to color a half-white, half-black red?]

 

Think his presidential library will be jammed to the rafters, with all 4 of his books?