I need to explain to some folks how this works. When I say a school has “invited” me to come speak I don’t mean merely that someone said “come on down.” It usually means they’ve paid me to come on out. I have a Speaker’s bureau which handles most of this sort of thing (as does Rich and a few others around here).

I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it actually is a big commitment of time and energy to leave town in the midst of everything else and give a talk. The speech itself is usually no more than an hour or two, but the time commitment is more like 48 hours if you include travel, prep, etc. So I need to get paid. That’s how it works for pretty much everyone who comes to a campus to speak, 90% of the time. Sometimes, for good groups and the like, I don’t work through the speaker’s bureau. But usually that sort of thing is in town. Lately, because of the book thing, I’ve turned down a lot of requests from Federalist Societies and other groups. Normally, I’d be eager to work something out and when the book’s done, you’ll be hearing from me. I have a great time doing this sort of thing and I always have a blast meeting with NRO-readers.

Anyway, I just bring this up because whenever I mention that a school has invited me to come speak, someone writes me and says “Hey, come on out to the University of Someplace” — which happens to be 2,000 miles away — as if all that’s needed is the verbal invite and I’ll pick up the tab for the rest. Sometimes it makes me think people assume there’s some sort of magic forcefield keeping conservatives away from campuses and all that’s required is the invitation to break the spell — sort of like with vamires who need to be invited into your home.