Sunday, January 2, 2011

Decision Points is the Literary Equivalent of a Chia Pet According to MSNBC

 Have you read Decision Points?  Do you own a copy?    As you may have read a few days ago, George Bush's memoir is selling like hotcakes:

Former U.S. President George W Bush's memoir has sold an astonishing two million copies since it was released in early November - and it's not even in paperback yet.   'Decision Points', published both in hardcover and e-book form, is flying off the shelves, the Crown Publishing Group says.  By contrast, former president Bill Clinton's memoir, 'My Life', has logged sales of 2.2million copies since it was first published in 2004.

Now let's see....

What could be the reason for this?

Could it be that there are Bush supporters out there who are interested in his time in The White House?  Nah!
Could it be that there are political junkies who are interested in reading about Bush's policy decisons?  Nah!

According to MSNBC, people are buying Decision Points as a joke, a gag gift.  Or maybe because they hate Bush so much they want to know just "What was he thinking?!"  

Norah O'Donnell interviewed Alex Pareene of Salon who suggested:

It may be the fact that he was hated by so many people actually helped fuel his book sales because people wanted to hear him actually justify himself and explain some of his decisions that he made. And, you know, there are, I mean, you can imagine that some people bought it as a gag or some people got it, received it as a gift and didn’t really want it.

By that logic there must also be a lot of liberals buy Sarah Palin's books.  Palin's America By Heart, dubbed "a flop" by the media, is currently ranked #6 and #7 on Amazon's non-fiction Political books list, behind The Federalist Papers and Glenn Beck's Broke.  It's currently #8 on the NYT Non-Fiction list (two slots ahead of Glenn Beck.).  Palin's Going Rogue was at the top of the NYT Best Seller list for six weeks and sold over one million copies.

By Alex Pareene's logic, that's a lot of liberals buying gag gifts.  Or a lot of liberals filled with a lot of hate who want to line the pockets of politicians they despise.  

What about Ann Coulter's best selling books?  Or Michelle Malkin's?  

Pareene's explanation of Bush's memoir as the literary equivalent of a Chia Pet is lame by any standards and further embarrasses MSNBC, if that were possible.

2 comments:

  1. I hate spinach- which is why I buy so much when I'm at the grocery store. You know, so I can remind myself of how awful spinach is....

    Because I can afford to throw around money at stuff I hate in this booming and robust economy//

    *interesting side note- the verifacation word is 'CLING'*

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have read most of it, it is a pretty good book. To be honest, I didn't think I would like it, so I read a bit of it in the store before I bought it.

    See that is the problem with their argument, if I am not sure that I want to spend money on a book, I sit in borders and read a few chapters first.

    I just love liberal logic.

    ReplyDelete