For the same reason they won’t review IN NIXON’S WEB: A Year in the Crosshairs of Watergate - to draw attention to it would draw attention to their own past failures. See innixonsweb.com.
I’m amazed that you sound surprised (or perhaps perturbed).
You seem to be operating under the assumption that the Post (or New York Times) are still the newspapers you remember them to be. I’m not sure that they ever were grand organs of the news but, if they were, they certainly haven’t been for at least 30 years.
Both of these papers (and many others, no doubt) are no longer “news"papers in any classic sense, but are PR organs for a particular worldview and political philosophy. In the case of the domestic political scene, this makes them nothing less than an arm of one political party. It’s really as simple as that.
While it’s true that the Internet is helping to counter the weight of their efforts, it is long passed time to stop being surprised by their works. Doing so does little more than than preserve their legitimacy as purveyors of the news.
As the author of two conservative-leaning novels, I can vouch that you are touching on a very under-reported story: The censorship of ideas by the Media/Entertainment Complex, the modern equivalent of the Military/Industrial Complex. Decisions about what Americans will see on the screen or read in the book store are made by an elite few in Manhattan and Hollywood. Just as novelists whose story lines don’t comport to a liberal perspective will rarely see their books published, conservative non-fiction authors are less likely to see their books taken seriously by reviewers.
If conservatives tried to restrict the flow of ideas thus, liberals would be holding congressional inquiries and screaming about it continuously on cable networks. Where is the outrage among conservatives?
Why in the world does Powerline care what books the Washington Post reviews?
For the same reasons anyone pondering a book purchase looks to the reviews and because Feith’s book is the first one by an Administration insider who is credited with being one of the architects of our Iraqi war policy?
Vladimir: It’s not a conservative point of view; it is D. Feith’s reporting of what ocurred on his watch and otherwise and with which he was familiar. Your statement about the Post not censoring the book is without foundation. By choosing NOT to review it, they have exercised a de-facto censorship. The Post’s support of the Iraq war is not relevant to their actions here.
Your statements are typical talking point excuses.
Utter baloney. Whose right to speak or read whatever they want was infringed?
By ignoring, they’re practicing a form of Stalinism: the book “disappears” because it never “appeared” (in the form of a review) in the WashedUpPost in the first place.
A re-reading (or first reading) of 1984 is in order.
Let’s go through the Washington Times archives and see all the books by liberals that they ignored.
I bet you’d be surprised at how catholic the book tastes and reviews of the Washington Times staff really are.
It’s only “media bias” when you disagree with it.
Sorry, no.
The slant to the far Left of the MSM has been documented, proven and exposed too many times to count now.
The role of the press (like the BrainWashingPost) and the media in general is to present the public with as unbiased a viewpoint as possible and allow the reader to make up their own mind.
What the Leftist dinosaur, drive-by media gives us is propaganda.
We’d like to be able to disagree with the WashedUpPost, but in regards to reviewing Feith’s book, they don’t even give us that opportunity.
By ignoring the book, the Post knows it will cost Feith book sales and that’s fine by them, mainly because a good deal of what Feith has to say would put the lie to virtually every WaPo headline for the last 7 years.
I’ve already ordered my copy and can’t wait until it gets here!
Your statement about the Post not censoring the book is without foundation. By choosing NOT to review it, they have exercised a de-facto censorship.
Utter baloney. Whose right to speak or read whatever they want was infringed?
Let’s go through the Washington Times archives and see all the books by liberals that they ignored.
It’s only “media bias” when you disagree with it.
You’re missing the point. No one has claimed that WaPo has a duty to review all books published. But its purpose is to give its readers a look at what the book is about, a general outline, and the reviewer’s opinion on things like factual sources, original materials, and things contained that may be of interest to the book-reading public. Clearly Feith’s book is one that will generate great interest, whether the WaPo reviews it or not. In choosing not to review, WaPo demonstrates a juvenile tantrum --- they don’t agree with the author, can’t fault him on his facts, and therefore, avoid the issue by failing to provide a review for what could be a seminal book on the subject for decades to come.
GG: “In choosing not to review, WaPo demonstrates a juvenile tantrum --- they don’t agree with the author, can’t fault him on his facts, and therefore, avoid the issue by failing to provide a review for what could be a seminal book on the subject for decades to come.”
Feith is a failure who is uninteresting and irrelevant. He (and most neo-cons) have been so marginalized that nobody cares.
Feith is a huge success, my friend and I’ve bought this book because it’s both interesting and very relevant.
We Neo Cons haven’t been marginalized (you wish!)--we’re still fighting and winning the war.
It’s you Code Stinkos, Cindy Sheehans and Nancy Pelosi fans who’ve been marginalized.
What is entertaining is viewing the apologists whine like babies on this flagship of neo-con blogs.
I’m sorry. Who’s whining? Always the Left.
For the last 8 years, all we’ve heard is whining…
Over at the Politico in the comments under an article about the Obama/Hillary fight, your fellow Lefties are still whining about how Bush “stole the election in 2000.”
Now, that’s entertainment!
Are there any liberals out there silly enough to keep track of whether the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal review every liberal’s book that comes out?
“The usual suspects in the media have ignored Feith’s book, since it explodes many myths about the Iraq war and generally fails to support the preferred narrative.”
They’re ignoring it because they’re afraid of it, and they’re also afraid that to review it might move people to read it out of curiousity.
And since they can’t have their template of the war challenged, it’s better to just bury Feith’s book and pray that no one reads it.
Well, the WaPo’s refusal to review it enticed me to buy the book. It’s my next read after I finish Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism.
It sounds to me as if they SHOULD review the book, but good grief, they gave it a front page story. Which would most authors rather have, do you suppose? A front page story reaches such a larger audience. The “usual” reader of political histories is going to read the book anyway, but I would tghink that a front-page story hugely increases the potential reader pool.
What I don’t know is how critical of the book the front page story
was.
