Business is business

The legal fight between several conservative authors and Regnery, the conservative book publisher, went a step farther last week when Al Regnery, former publisher of the business, sneered at the "handful of disgruntled authors" on his blog. Regnery, who is son of the founder of the company, and now publisher of the conservative magazine American Spectator, is no longer affiliated with Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery. Even so, he writes on the Spectator's website, "I'm a lawyer and I know that the contracts they signed are clear and transparent."

Besides, he adds dismissively, it is "probable that several, if not all, of the five authors suing the company would not have been published had it not been for us."

The authors include Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Robert Patterson, Joel Mobray, and Richard Miniter. Their complaint, discussed in this New York Times story, alleges that Regnery "orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed, and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets" as a way of reducing the authors' royalties.

Corsi is the main author (along with John E. O'Neill) of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." On the experience of being victimized by fraud, deception, and self-dealing, perhaps he will bring other victims into court to testify. John Kerry might make time.