Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Eric Alterman Feels Slighted — for a Reason

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Eric Alterman complains that his book got ignored by major media because it made them uncomfortable:

The book got almost no attention in the media; the only significant review was the one published in The Washington Post, who gave it to Reagan/Bush/Fox News operative, James Pinkerton. Still, with next to no media attention, the book entered the Times extended best-seller list and stayed there four weeks. I’ve never before published a book that was so thoroughly ignored in the media, nor one that started out as a best-seller.

I haven't read it. I imagine that the book review editors most likely would say that didn't review it because they thought it wasn't that great, or was like a lot of other anti-Bush books being published these days.

Probably just about every author thinks that his book deserved more and better reviews, so one should treat all such complaints with healthy scepticism. And it's certainly the case that not every best-seller gets reviewed. Diet books, sleazy potboilers, and many genre fiction such as scifi/fantasy books sell well but don't get much attention from newspaper reviewers.

But when was the last time a non-fiction political book was a best seller and didn't get reviewed in major newspapers? Maybe the last time such a book accused those papers of mis- (if not mal-) feasance?

Posted in Kultcha | 2 Comments

Will Men Get Lucky?

Posted on March 24, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Last week I was in the airport for the first time in a while, and with time on my hands had a look at the magazines. I noticed one called “Lucky: The Magazine About Shopping,” and thought that it must be the dumbest idea for a magazine out there. Boy was I wrong. Not only is it selling 900,000 copies per issue, but the dumbest idea for a magazine was just around the corner: Cargo.

Here's how the Post's reviewer describes it:

Cargo is a shopping magazine for men. It contains no stories, just pictures of stuff you can buy — or, as one of Conde Nast's vast army of publicists puts it, “no articles, all products.”

Cargo might be the worst idea for a magazine in human history. It's certainly the worst idea for a magazine since December 2000, when Conde Nast launched Lucky, a shopping magazine for women. …

Lucky's success inspired Conde Nast to launch Cargo, originally dubbed Lucky for Men. That name was accurate: Cargo's premiere issue contains features on such guy-friendly stuff as hot cars and power tools, but it also has plenty of stuff about, yes, shoes and makeup and handbags and hairdos. …

But never fear. There is, yes, actual content in Cargo. The inaugural issue contains … wait for it … “fully illustrated advice on 'How to Roll Up Your Sleeves.' Step one: 'Undo all the buttons on the sleeve.'” Who woulda guessed?

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Brad DeLong Translates Richard Clarke For Us

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Brad DeLong explains what Richard Clarke is too diplomatic to say straight out:

If there is one thing clear from reading Against All Enemies, it is that Clarke is f***ing apeshit. I've never seen anyone so apeshit. Clarke had thought he was leading a successful counterterrorism effort against al Qaeda, and then at the start of 2001 these idiot neocon Cold Warriors came in and messed everything up with bureaucratic bull****. Because the Bush administration blocked his plans, September 11, 2001 happens and 3,000 Americans die. And then the White House takes 911 as a poiltical football and runs with it. And then it uses 911 as a phony excuse to launch a war on Iraq that—in Clarke's estimation—greatly strengthens al Qaeda.

And I had thought that Paul O'Neill was mad at and disgusted with the George W. Bush administration…

Actually, by all accounts, Clarke just uses nicer words to say it.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on Brad DeLong Translates Richard Clarke For Us

Our Dime-Store Machiavellians

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Via Dan's Washpost column, a link to a valuable but depressing compilation from the Center for American Progress: White House Intimidation, a list of folks the Bush team has tried to silence or punish for speaking. Proving they at least understand that it's better to be feared than loved.

Bill Clinton's greatest failing as a President may be that he never really understood that lesson and tried to reward his enemies too often, emboldening congress and others to walk right over him. (No need to mention his second greatest failing, although it may be related to the first.) This is the other extreme.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 2 Comments

Clarke, Day 3

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Daily Kos on Clarke — it's not that he's new so much that he's credible and impossible to ignore. And, oh yes, the administration appears to have no substantive response in its arsenal. None. None.

By their own right, the Clarke stuff is not that significant. Or at the very least, not too original. He has said little that we didn't already know around these parts.

But what Clarke has done is simply add fuel to charges alredy floating around — from Paul O'Neil, from David Kay, from others. One person making charges might be spun as the rantings of a disgruntled former employee, or the machinations of a political enemy. But as more of these former officials come out, the damage they wreak on the administration rises exponentially.

We are seeing confirmation upon confirmation upon confirmation. The numbers of whistleblowers are too many to easily dismiss. The news media is no longer doing so, and the administration is reduced to calling in Rush Limbaugh to plead their case (Cheney: Our top counter-terrorism official was “out of the loop” on terrorism matters. And that's their defense!)

If there is no substantive response in the arsenal, that leaves the politics of personal destruction. But how many skeletons can there be in the closet of a guy who held all the highest clearances we have for 20+ years?

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 1 Comment

Unerasing Data as a Hobby

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

My friend Simpson Garfinkel, the award-winning journalist and author, had, it seems, a fairly odd hobby. It started when he spotted piles of cheap used hard drives on sale in a local computer supply store:

I took the drives home and started my own forensic analysis. Several of the drives had source code from high-tech companies. One drive had a confidential memorandum describing a biotech project; another had internal spreadsheets belonging to an international shipping company.

Since then, I have repeatedly indulged my habit for procuring and then analyzing secondhand hard drives. I bought recycled drives in Bellevue, Wash., that had internal Microsoft e-mail (somebody who was working from home, apparently). Drives that I found at an MIT swap meet had financial information on them from a Boston-area investment firm. Last summer, I started buying drives en masse on eBay.

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Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 1 Comment