Books: No Place for Politics

Newt Gingrich has a book out titled “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.” Or I should say that Newt and co-author Vince Haley have a book out. I’m guessing that Vince did most of the heavy lifting, but since you – like everybody else – just asked yourself, “Who the hell is Vince Haley?” they added Newt’s name to the cover.

After I’ve spent the better part of two years researching writing, editing, reviewing copy edits, and reviewing page proofs of my own book, I’m skeptical of the publishing process involved in “Drill Here.” The offshore drilling debate is barely months old. Sure, it might have been debated before, but I’m guessing that Vince and Newt didn’t come up with the idea of the book until recently because the issue wasn’t prominent enough to sell books. Now that it is…presto! Here’s your book with a selling window of a few months until the news cycle changes.

I find it hard to believe that a whole lot of research, sweat, and tears went into this book. Or the recent Sarah Palin Bioout soon. Or Obama’s most recent book published eight days ago. Come on, really? Obama spends about 27 hours a day in front of cameras – at a diner in Ohio in the morning, at a rally in Colorado for lunch, and in Indiana for a town hall meeting in a barn in the evening. He doesn’t have time to write a book!

I know. I just wrote one.

Books on the politics of what happened yesterday are an insult to the written word.