World-Class Discount

If you hafta get the NAFTA bestseller written by Ross Perot, you can probably pick it up pretty cheap.

Perot’s paperback “Save Your Job, Save Our Country--Why NAFTA Must Be Stopped--Now!” is being discounted around town by booksellers betting there won’t be much demand anymore for the $6.95 book. Last week, foes of the North American Free Trade Agreement lost when the House approved NAFTA.

Some stores are discounting Perot’s book by 20%, with steeper discounts predicted by sellers. “It will probably be shipped back to the publisher and return next year on the 50-cent tables,” predicts Doug Dutton of Brentwood’s Dutton Books.

Shooting to Make a Bundle

The media frenzy surrounding today’s 30th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination seems to have pioneered a new frontier in commercial exploitation.

Officials at National Historical Mint in Boca Raton, Fla., confirm they plan to have Earl Ruby fire “100 commemorative bullets” into a drum of water using the same gun his brother, Jack, fired when he killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

The event is scheduled at a shooting range on Wednesday, the anniversary of the day Jack Ruby gunned down Oswald in the basement of the Dallas City Jail.

National Historical Mint partner Cliff Feldman says that the commemorative bullets will be mounted on a plaque that will include a picture of the gun as well as a photo of the Oswald shooting. He predicts the plaque will be marketed for about $2,500 to $2,800.

Hotel Buyer Checks Out

Sunday marked two years since the federal Resolution Trust Corp. auctioned the Doubletree Resort near Palm Springs for $18.1 million in a sale the agency boasted then was a smashing success.

Two years later the thrift mop-up agency is still stuck with the 289-room hotel. An agency official confirms that the sale to investor Charles Lee has finally fallen through, adding that the RTC is about to try to sell the hotel again.

Grand Old Press Handlers

President Clinton travels to Los Angeles next month to be feted at a benefit fund-raiser at the Beverly Hills headquarters of the influential Creative Artists Agency.

One bit of irony is that the chief press contacts listed for the event honoring America’s top Democrat are two veteran Republican handlers.

On the White House side is communications guru David Gergen. Working the press for CAA is Anna Perez, who previously was former First Lady Barbara Bush’s press secretary.

Briefly . . .

The Red Lion hotel at Los Angeles International Airport has a “NAFTA special,” charging $89 (U.S.), $89 (Canadian) or 89 pesos for a room. . . . A New Jersey company is selling for $295 a football autographed by USC’s four Heisman Trophy winners. . . . A Maryland company is taking bids to sell “Yasser Arafat’s autographed headgear.”