Buchanan Book A "Surprise Bestseller"?

By James Fulford

08/21/2006

Pat Buchanan’s new book is now up to #2 on Amazon.com.[State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America]

I expect it to be a "surprise bestseller," not in the sense that it surprises you and me, but in the sense that the liberal media are always surprised when a book by a conservative does well.

This is Ann Coulter’s list of "Surprise bestsellers" from Slander. I've omitted Kevin Michael Grace’s entry from list, since he insists he doesn’t belong there, but it doesn’t invalidate Coulter’s basic point. Here’s her list:

The reluctance of the mainstream publishing houses to publish conservative books stems from two factors: (1) the public seems to like them; and (2) they are often profitable for the publisher. Unable to learn from the second kick of a mule (or the third, fourth, or twentieth), the elite media invariably describe the frequent conservative best-sellers as "surprise bestsellers." It’s been the same surprise for twenty years. Excluding alternative phraseologies such as "a bigger hit than anticipated" (Dan Quayle’s Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir) or "an unexpected success" (The Real Anita Hill), here is a partial list of conservative books that have been described in the mainstream media as "surprise best-sellers" (italics added):

• "Another surprise national bestseller is Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up … in fact, president Al Regnery says it’s been No. 1 most of the summer."

  Washington Post

• "The Closing of the American Mind … became a surprise best seller"and "Allan Bloom’s surprise 1987 bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind.. ."

  New York Times

  Alan Bloom "detonated a cultural bomb when he published the surprise best seller The Closing of the American Mind."

  Newsweek

• " … such surprise bestsellers as Dinesh D’souza’s Illiberal Education and David Brock’s expose The Real Anita Hill..."

  United Press International

• "Parliament of Whores remains a surprise best seller."

  Newsweek

• "The hilarious Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life & Times, by James Finn Garner has become a surprise best seller."

  USA Today

• "Last year, Chicago writer James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories became a surprise bestseller."

  U.S. News & World Report

• "The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, a scathing indictment of regulatory law and a surprise best seller."

  New York Times

• "The book, Unlimited Access, with its fierce and often undocumented critique of the Clinton White House by retired FBI agent Gary Aldrich, is a surprise best-seller."

  National Public Radio

• " … in [Robert Bork’s] new, surprise bestseller, Slouching Toward Gomorrah."

  Chicago Tribune

• "Inspired by The Book of Virtues, a surprise best seller edited by former Secretary of Education William Bennett … "

  Buffalo News [Dallas Morning News]

• "Stephen E. Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, a scholarly history book that extols the accomplishments of dead white males, was the surprise best seller of 1996." Newsweek

• " … the surprise bestselling impeachment guidebook High Crimes and Misdemeanors … " U.S. News & World Report
• "[The Conservative Party British prime minister’s] 774-page memoir, titled John Major: The Autobiography … is already a surprise best seller in Britain." USA Today
• "[Flags of Our Fathers, the story of the six young men who raised a flag on Iwo Jima] is the surprise runaway nonfiction best seller of the season."New York Times
• " … the surprise best-seller The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life … "Entertainment Weekly
• "Books by conservatives are hot these days, but it still comes as a surprise to see that Bernard Goldberg’s Bias has bounced to the top of the New York Times best-seller list."Time

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