Polluting Mainstream Publishing

Folk wisdom says "Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk," but the Obama campaign has little choice as a new load of slime by the co-author of the 2004 swiftboat smears tops the New York Times best-seller list this weekend.

For those with the stomach and patience to wade through the muck, some of the factual rebuttals can be found here and here.

But what interests a former book publisher is how low such a respected house as Simon & Schuster has fallen in lusting for the nutball dollar, as it issues Jerome Corsi's "Obama Nation" under the imprint of Mary Matalin, a former Dick Cheney staffer with no publishing background, a book industry feat akin to sweeping in money while holding your nose.

Corsi, who has previously disputed the notion that oil is a fossil fuel and argued that the Twin Towers were felled on 9/11 by explosives inside the building, is a persuasive enough exponent of the tinfoil hat school of paranoia to inspire a theory about the publication of his new book.

Isn't it possible that Matalin, who is married to James Carville, one of Hillary Clinton's ardent backers, is part of a plot to take down Obama before the Democratic convention, where enough delegates with a chance to vote for the former First Lady will be so spooked by Corsi's tome that they switch allegiance and give her the nomination?

Anyone who doubts that theory will have to wait for the documentation in my forthcoming expose, "The Clinton Comeback," to be published soon by Random House under the imprint of Mark Penn.

Book-Contract Baksheesh

On the eve of another Rupert Murdoch mongoose act, this time swallowing the Wall Street Journal, he gets a review from the New York Times that required legwork by no less than four reporters and, in the end, reflects both shock and awe at the Australian who is eating the media world.

America’s “paper of record” narrates Murdoch’s unique skills at getting politicians to act as enablers in his addictive expansion of an information empire.

In addition to the time-honored methods, Murdoch has perfected new variations for buying them, not least of which is bribery by book advance.

As Congress was preparing to redraw the media ownership rules, Murdoch’s book publishing arm, HarperCollins, gave House Speaker Newt Gingrich a $4.5 million contract. In the Senate, Trent Lott got a $250,000 advance for a memoir.

Other Senators came at bargain prices. Arlen Specter, received $24,506 for “Passion for Truth,” Kay Bailey Hutchison $141,666 for “American Heroines.” Chuck Hagel has a book deal for next year.

Unless things have changed drastically since my time as a publisher, books by politicians, unless they involve scandal, are not best-sellers. Trent Lott’s quarter-of-a-million-dollar tome sold 12,000 copies.

But Murdoch got his money’s worth, as he no doubt will from the $1 million advance to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Book publishing is an odd business that has never been just about money.