When Metaphors Attack!

Mark Coffey barks at the firedogs.

But seriously, folks - congrats to Marcy Wheeler of the Next Hurrah for her book deal, and as we say in the Kingdom, have fun luck storming the castle!

Comments

[Chants]

And you don't garner an FDL endorsement? Tom, what went wrong?

[Sue]

It's really kind of sad, when you think about it. A book about nothing. Maybe she could call it Seinfeld Redux.

[emptywheel]

Thank you, Tom, for the kind wishes. Your good faith sparring is as much a part of this book as the other contributions from TNH regulars. And--if you want it--you will certainly get your due in the acknowledgments.

[Slartibartfast]

It's have fun storming the castle, just to be Crystal clear.

[MayBee]

Well, Mike Stark's promise of a plan earned over $3,000 in 1 day. So I'm guessing an actual book has some real earning potential.

[MayBee]

Jeff had a great list of questions for Joe Wilson last spring. I'd love to see him pass that along to EW, and she could get some answers in her book.

TM, maybe you too could pass along some questions for him. I'm assuming Wilson will be a source.

[JM Hanes]

emptywheel:

What a project that will be (and what a long roller coaster ride to document)! Congratulations.

[emptywheel]

Thank you both, Maybee and JM Hanes.

I'm not going to get rich off of this--the idea is to fill in the narrative that has been ignored by the media (particularly those parts that they are complicit in). Mostly, I'll be working from public sources. Part of the goal is to demonstrate what has been overlooked in the public sources.

Though Joe Wilson has been willing to answer clarifying questions--so yes, perhaps I can get some questions clarified there, as well.

[MayBee]

It's probably better to have Jane Hamsher backing a book than not, eh? I would hate for EW to get the Kate O'Beirne treatment on Amazon.

[clarice]

The notion of Ambassador Munchausen clarifying anything made me laugh so hard I fell off my Aeron chair.

[topsecretk9]

-- I would hate for EW to get the Kate O'Beirne treatment on Amazon--

Get out of my head MayBee...I was thinking, can you imagine the righteous indignation foot stomping tantrum Hamsher would wield if anyone dared to be as heinous, evil, and fascist as wringing bad reviews of a book they never read in order to defray book-sales like SHE DID!

I say we take up a collection to buy Hamsher an extra case of razor blades for her breakfast during the launch.

[Tom Maguire]

It's have fun storming the castle, just to be Crystal clear.

Groan - there are just enough fools like me that Google didn't steer me away. Thanks.

if you want it--you will certainly get your due in the acknowledgments.

Thanks very much. I'm actually hoping for a jacket blurb. I picture something like "I agree with every word in this - it is in only after they are formed into sentences and paragraphs that we head in different directions".

Cut that down and it should work fine.

[JM Hanes]

TM & EW:

It's funny, but I found myself thinking about those old upside down books I had as a child -- the ones that had two stories with different covers on front and back. You could read either one depending on which way you held the book, and then spin it around to read the second story from the opposite direction.

You guys could get together & write a pair of Dueling Narratives. Alternatively, if you prefer a more contemprary format, you could set it up like those multilingual instruction books that now come with all our gizmos. :)

[Jane]

Will the title be "Duped"?

[BumperStickerist]

The first rule of publishing, know your audience. Jane'll have final say as to the title, which will be:

Crashing the PlameGate
by Marcy Wheeler

----------------------------

There's every possibility that Marcy's book will be findable at the library by author rather it being assigned a Dewey decimal number.

.

[maryrose]

Jane:
LOL. It's the perfect title for the book and yes TM should receive an acknowledgment at the very least.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

It's a lot easier to storm the castle now that that Corn and Isikoff have dried up the moat with their second source on Armitage.

I'll guess Hamsher is trying the Greenwald redux. Find a blogger. Find a story. Put them in a closet and don't let them out until you've rigged the Amazon.com pre-sales figures. Upon apex of manipulation, release the book regardlesss of its progress.

On the bright side, in book form I'll be able to lollerskate my way to humour heaven anywhere I can take it.

[mark c.]

if anyone wants to see textbook "an incomprehensible mess of spin put out by the administration", observe the sturm and drang generated over the next few days by the exiled Clintonistas over the pending ABC 9/11 flick. One wonders how many lines of direct rebuttal a conservative ex-president would be given by the MSM under the same circumstances.

[Barney Frank]

Though Joe Wilson has been willing to answer clarifying questions

I note with no small irony that the adjective 'clarifying' is applied to the questions but not the answers.

[Jane]

Barney,

That's funny because it is soooooooooo true. Wilson is like the pied piper of the BDS crowd.

[maryrose]

Jane: good analogy regarding Wilson's role in all this assuming BDS followers are either rats or children throwing tantrums.
Barney Frank:
An astute point. We won't be getting any clarifying answers anytime soon as long as a civil law suit is in play.

[Jane]

Actually the civil suit has the potential of giving us lots of clarifying answers. We will have to read between Wilson's lies to find them, but that seems to be where everyone here's skills lie.

[windansea]

what a joke

Jane wants to get the truth out, except when she doesn't like a book she encourages her blog readers to write phony book reviews

great choice for a publisher Marcy!!

[Jane]

Hey - distinguish your Janes!

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'Though Joe Wilson has been willing to answer clarifying questions--so yes, perhaps I can get some questions clarified there, as well.'

Well, great. How about having him clarify this from the Vanity Fair article:

'In early May, Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq; one of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger....'

Which would suggest that when Kristoff wrote his second column in June, he meant Joe and Val were his two sources 'directly involved':

'Piecing the story together from two people directly involved and three others who were briefed on it....'

When will you be asking Joe about that?

[JM Hanes]

The short version of PatrickRS's question is:

Was the wife at the Wilson/Kristoff breakfast, per Vanity Fair, Mrs. Wilson or Mrs. Kristoff?

It appears to be a grammatical ambiguity, not intentional vagueness.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I've just spent fifty minutes listening to Corn and Isikoff on the Diane Rehm Show, and you can too.

Near the end Isikoff really makes a huge blunder by saying the forged documents were the source of the '16 words'. Twice.

What really struck me is that they don't realize the implications of what's in their book. That the CIA, and Valerie Wilson in particular, made a lot of wrong judgments and that the Administration relied on those judgments. Validating what Libby complained to Judy Miller about.

Everything they said on this program makes the CIA look bad, not Bush or Cheney.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Btw, JM, even if it was Mrs Kristoff having breakfast with Joe and Nick, I can't see who else the second source could be but Val.

[MayBee]

clarice-
I think Empty Wheel is about to get your Bentley. They are up to $16,000 in 24 hours.

[JM Hanes]

PatrickRS

Sorry, I oversimplified, and substituted my question for yours! [Thwacks own head]