Nitpicking

The Times today explores Simon & Schuster's foray into political controversy in its new book, "Obama Nation," by Jerome Corsi. Corsi is the author of "Unfit for Command," the 2004 book that made a number of later-discredited accusations against John Kerry's military record. Former Republican strategist Mary Matalin is the publisher of S&S's conservative imprint, Threshold Editions, which brought out the Corsi book Aug. 1. It debuts on the Times bestseller list at no. 1 in nonfiction next Sunday.

Matalin defends the book as a piece of scholarship, but the Times describes a number of serious errors, including the statement that Obama attended a firebreathing anti-American sermon by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright last July 22. When the errors were pointed out to Corsi during interviews, he called the criticism "nitpicking." Instead of saying, "My statement is true," he says, in effect, "It doesn't matter if it's true or not."

That does seem increasingly to be the ethos behind the political attack-book genre, and virtually all publishers have made their peace with it. No one at Simon & Schuster will feel a need to take a shower after working on Corsi's book. After all, business is business. Yet look how defensive publishers become when such books as James Frey's lying memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," are exposed. They say, "Look, we're not journalists, we're not newspaper editors. We publish hundreds of books -- you can't expect us to know whether everything in a book is true."

Fair enough. With regard to publishing standards and ethics, we'll try to remember to keep our expectations low.