Our former governor—who returned to her television news roots this week after it was announced that Fox News scored former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a commentator—is also making waves by becoming the de facto leader of the Tea Party movement, while eschewing traditional GOP confabs like the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Rather than speaking at CPAC, the First Quitter is the headlining speaker at the first “National Tea Party Convention” in Nashville the first week of February. (Other notable speakers include Minnesota’s wingnut Republican Representative Michelle Bachmann and notorious Obama “birther” Joseph Farah.) It’s been reported that the former governor, whose almost-son-in-law Levi Johnston has said repeatedly she quit the governorship to pursue finanacial opportunities, will be paid $100,000 for the speech. If true, not bad, Sarah, not bad. (By the way, how much is the Fox deal worth? Enough to pay those legal bills incurred by filing that ethics complaint against yourself?)

But not all conservatives, or Tea Party supporters, for that matter, are excited about Our Lady of the North’s pricey diatribe (hell, now if you wanna hear her, turn on Fox News). Erick Erickson, the driving force behind redstate.com, an influential conservative website, wrote an article this week titled, “I’m Afraid Sarah Palin Might Be Ruining Herself Unintentionally.” In it he writes, “I have much good to say about groups like Tea Party Patriots, but I think this national tea party convention smells scammy.

“Let me be blunt: charging people $500.00 plus the costs of travel and lodging to go to a ‘National Tea Party Convention’ run by a for profit group no one has ever heard of sounds as credible as an email from Nigeria promising me a million bucks if I fork over my bank account number.”

But Erick, Sarah’s got to get paid, yo!

bjk@anchoragepress.com