Slate-Spin On Matalin Hire

Slate's biz writer, Daniel Gross, looks at the announcement by mainstream, Viacom-owned book publisher Simon & Schuster that it is starting a conservative publishing house with Mary Matalin at the helm and analyzes it only as Slate can:

Given their triumph in last November's elections (and their behavior since), the Republicans have nowhere to go but down.

That's right. We're doomed. Gross likens the S&S announcement as akin to Time Warner selling to AOL at the peak of the Internet bubble, or Fortune putting Krispy Kreme on its cover just as the brand's sugar-coated slide started.

That there is a strong market for conservative books can't possibly mean there's a big market of conservatives; oh no, it must mean that S&S made a bad business decision.

The silliness of his thesis aside, I particularly liked the snide, effete, snobbishness that Gross displayed, working hard to prove that being from a blue state must mean you're a blueblood:

In 2003 Penguin Group (USA) started conservative imprint Sentinel, which churns out mind-candy for the National Review crowd. Random House has started Crown Forum, whose Web site contains handy links to the right-wing echo chamber.

All Simon & Schuster's bosses and editors seem to know about conservatives is that they buy books that pander to them and conform to their worldview.

Al Franken and Michael Moore do not, of course, produce mind-candy for the The Nation crowd or play to an echo chamber that reverberates with "No Blood For Oil!" chants. And Liberals are famous for their wide-ranging reading preferences, because they are so ... what's that word again? ... tolerant.