An update on my $100,000 Palin bet

So, I believe that we have a bet (altered from the original proposal) between a man with one name and another who publicly “accepted” the bet but who has not e-mailed me five days after being directly given my contact info and being told that him contacting me was vital to confirming the bet.

Does anyone else feel that this agreement might be a little shaky?

The most frustrating element of all of this is that there has never been anything remotely flimsy about my offer or its intent. While I fully realize that such an offer is wrongly seen by many observers in the media as a stunt (largely because they see it through the cynical prism of what it would mean if they themselves, a group incapable of acting in anything other than their own self-interest, ever did such a thing), I can assure you that the offer could not be more real or more grounded in substantive intentions. I am simply trying to prove an incredibly important point, and given that I do not have a nightly show on Fox News, this is about the only option I have to do so.

Frankly, while I am well aware that few will realize or admit it, the point has already been made in spades. The only semi-legitimate response to my incredibly lopsided and lucrative bet was from by far the most fanatical pro-Palin website and was “accepted,” after significant alterations, in a way that was neither efficient nor definitive. Had a similar offer been made at this time in 2007 to liberal supporters of Obama’s then-long-shot candidacy (a scenario that was actually quite plausible), I would have been immediately bombarded with credible responses. The near total silence here is as significant as it is unfortunately unsurprising.

Heck, even Big Hollywood’s John Nolte, who penned one of the more declarative and high-profile pieces saying I was wrong, didn’t even bother to get back to me on the bet proposal. Gee, I wonder why?

The bottom line of all of this is that what I said about Palin’s inability to get elected is a vital and undeniable truth that was dramatically against my self-interest to voice, and yet the conservative establishment has largely ignored it because this truth is not in their self-interest to tell. Unfortunately, such communication failures are just part of the price our movement will continue to pay for having the vast majority of our small share of the media pie driven by the motivations of a business instead of a cause.

John Ziegler is currently a documentary filmmaker who most recently released a movie on the 2008 election called, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” He has also been in radio talk show host in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Louisville and Nashville. Ziegler has written two books and has appeared live on numerous national television shows including the Today Show, The View, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC.