Hillary Clinton’s memoir, Hard Choices, has failed the one test even the Obama White House cannot rig (or simply chose not to do): book sales numbers. Although the legacy media have commonly characterized sales of her book as lukewarm so far, the numbers are significantly worse than that, considering her name-recognition and public prominence.

As the Washington Examiner reports, sales of Clinton’s book have been less than one-quarter of what Sarah Palin achieved with her book, Going Rogue: An American Life, when the latter was released while the former Alaska governor was enduring near-universal scorn from the mainstream media.

Palin’s book hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The performance of Clinton’s book is best described as underwhelming. The Washington Examiner story notes the contrast:

Palin’s book, which was released the same year President Obama moved into the White House, sold approximately 496,000 copies in its first week of release, according to figures cited by theNew York Times.

That’s almost half a million copies in one week.

In contrast, Clinton, with all her softball interviews and a massive amount of free publicity from an excited press, sold only 100,000 copies from its Tuesday release through Saturday, Politico reported.

Mrs. Clinton, of course, will keep the massive advance her publisher chose to pay her. The politician will thrive, and the business will suffer: how typical of contemporary American life.