It’s been a long time since book publishing was called the “gentleman’s trade,” but it’s always a good time to try to perpetuate the myth.

After it was announced that a roman à Regan, The Devil Says Mean Things to You, was going to be published, someone wondered why there weren’t more books set in the industry:

“It isn’t that kind of business,” says Jason Epstein, a longtime editor with Doubleday and Random House whose many authors have included Norman Mailer and E.L. Doctorow. “It’s very gentlemanly, and there isn’t a lot of scandal to write about. You publish a book, it sells or it doesn’t sell, and then you publish another one.”

You don’t really believe that, do you? I didn’t think so.

Her campaign might have stolen mindshare, leaving the netroots wounded, but Hollywood is one up on Hillary—either that or Obama’s people are stealing mindshare from her.

‘Cause Hollywood is going for Obama in a big way, reports ABC (via Roger L. Simon):

Hillary’s Hollywood Friends Switch Sides

Steven Spielberg and David Geffen Invite Hundreds of Stars to Their Big Barack Obama Fundraiser

Of course it could be argued, as I did here, that Hollywood lost interest in the Clintons a while back. Plus: Al Gore has some prominent fans on the Left Coast too.

This is rich.

Jossip—Jossip!—disapproves of the New York Times doing gossip. Caryn James’s dissection of Angelina Jolie’s career was

a mediocre attempt at camouflaging the Times’ eagerness to capitalize on the brewing uptick in all things celebrity while holding its head high in the same pages that run Frank Rich’s columns.

Methinks the gossips at Jossip are feeling the heat. ‘Cause James (she’s from the NYT, dontcha know) gets access and gives good dish.

Gawker is more in the spirit of things:

Caryn James Is SO On Team Aniston

Thanks to Kos, now I know what “scoop up mindshare before anyone can even organize” (see this post) means: the netroots just got punked by Hillary’s campaign: 

Ahh, Yesterday I wondered where the WSJ got the notion that Hillary had scored significant victories in the “netroots primary”, since all objective evidence suggests that Hillary, in fact, has little online support.

Turns out the reporter just rewrote these two Clinton campaign press releases: Clinton candidacy garners huge online response and 24 hours later, the reviews are in. …

And it’s a bizarre world, one in which fierce Clinton critics like MyDD’s Matt Stoller are suddenly supporters [indeed  --ed]. …

The campaign also cherry picks diaries on Daily Kos to pull ones that are supportive while ignoring the many, many more that are critical, attempting to give the impression that there is massive support for her effort on the nation’s largest progressive blog.

So the Clinton campaign can make up an alternate reality where she is the prohibitive netroots favorite while her opponents — the ones with actual widespread netroots support — are left unable or unwilling to take advantage of that support. [emphasis added]

Smart.

As I said the other day, I wish the Dems would devote even an eighth of their brain cells to figuring out how to do this kind of thing in response to media-savvy jihadi assholes rather than just their fellow Democratic (or Republican) assholes.

I haven’t read the book and I don’t intend to read the book, but I can tell you right off the bat that if it was written by committee, whose members had flashes of brilliance like this

“The scenes with the wicked boss were so hilarious and so strong that I thought if we put more of that in the book, the book would work better,” Raab says. “Villains are fun, and they tend to steal the show.”

then the book is going to be a dog.