A Literary Catfight

While revenge may be a dish best served cold, getting back at the woman who you blame for your humiliation,is usually done in the heat of the moment.

Publishers will have to decide if they want to enter the literary catfight.

If there's money it, they will.

But would you read the wit and wisdom of "Tampa Kardashian"?

Jill Kelley famously styled herself as an honorary consul worthy of diplomatic immunity when she was named in connection with the David Petraeus adultery scandal.

She has fired off angry letters to the mayor of Tampa, Florida, reflecting her belief that she is an important person who should not be treated with disrespect.

At present, she is pushing a tell-all book to New York publishers, promising to reveal all sorts of juicy scandal about her arch-nemesis, Paula Broadwell. After all, why should Ms. Broadwell reap the benefits of writing a book? Two can play that game.

Perhaps Ms. Kelley is more upset about her personal finances getting an airing when her connections to General Petraeus and other high-level military figures were examined. When you're in arrears on your credit card bills, your husband is a well-paid surgeon and you live in a large home, people talk about you in ways that are not complimentary.

That being the case, it's easy to dismiss her attempt to sell a book as a bid to raise cash to fund her lavish lifestyle.

Sure there are publishers in New York who would buy her manuscript, doctor it and lay it down for a quick buck, but those aren't the sorts of publishers who pay large advances.

Maybe if Ms. Kelley can expose the seedy underbelly of McDill Air Force Base, or present a frightening picture of military readiness to engage in sexual hijinks rather than war, she might have something.

But if her book is nothing more than a literary catfight, there wouldn't be much pressure on the publishers to tussle over an auction. There wouldn't be much interest from the big publishing houses, especially when they'd have to consider legal issues of slander and the like.

So maybe there'll be a new book coming out soon, with Jill Kelley as author.

Then she can check her Amazon numbers against Paula Broadwell's, and the fight can go on.