Klein's Bestseller

A Politicker correspondent who really ought to be getting back to his day job passes on word that Ed Klein's new Hillary book will be debuting in second place on the New York Times bestseller list to be published on July 10. The book's success raises the question of how those of us who work in the mainstream media should react to stuff like this. An earlier generation would have just ignored it -- after all, the book contains nothing that would qualify as news -- but now even the Times feels obliged to cover whatever pops up on Drudge, if only in a "story of the story" sort of way. And for most people writing about it, there was a question of whether to repeat the particularly ugly allegations about Hillary's personal life, or just to refer to them. The Politicker has solved this dilemma by refusing to link Klein's book in its running "story-of-the-story" coverage. That'll teach him!