Paper Tiger

A new meme is making its way around the blogs of the left, sparked by Sid Blumenthal's comments in a recent New York Observer piece. How (the bloggers have been wondering) is it that Ann Coulter manages to place a badly researched pile of cheap invective so high on the bestseller lists? Are our collective political sensibilities really that debased?

Well, maybe not. See, if you look at the current NY Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list, you'll notice that Treason is unique in having a little "(+)" symbol appended to its listing, signalling that bookstores have reported getting bulk orders for the book. Maybe some of those are going to Web sites like Human Events and NewsMax, which are handing out free copies of the book to subscribers. This somewhat restores my faith in humanity. (Via Tom Spencer)