And conservative publishers publish conservative books, too. So? Those pushing the "leftist publisher" angle are pretty much blowing smoke.

Even the "a lot of it was edited by somebody else" meme doesn't hold up. I can point to a number of political best-sellers that fall into that category, on the left and the right. I read somebody's professional estimate once that up to 40 percent of such works are ghostwritten or the product of collaboration.

It's particularly ironic to see Rush pushing this meme today, since both of his books were notes transcribed and edited by others.

As ER pointed out, this new book is basically rehashed stuff that's been making the rounds for a long time. If Bush were running for anything in 2008, it would at least make a little sense in the timing, like Richard Clarke's 2006 book.

Which brings up a little more irony here:

Q Why do you think he's [Clarke] doing this?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, why, all of a sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-a-half years after he left the administration. And now, all of a sudden, he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had. And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book. Certainly let's look at the politics of it. His best buddy is Rand Beers, who is the principal foreign policy advisor to Senator Kerry's campaign. The Kerry campaign went out and immediately put these comments up on their website that Mr. Clarke made.