I’m Charitable Enough Not To Look Up The Metacritic Score For Scenes From A Mall

Since I’ve already addressed the stupidity of trying to draw broad sociological conclusions based on such data, all I can add to TBogg’s analysis of Roger Simon’s attempts to make some broad sociological claim about The Left based on claims about relative sales that aren’t actually backed up by any relative evidence is to note that Fred Barnes’ “book” Felatee-In-Chief is currently hovering at 4,025, while J-Pod’s Bush Country: Why Bush Became Greater Than Lincoln, Churchill, and God Put Together While Driving Those Crazy Liberals Crazy!!!!11!!!ONE!!!1 clocks in at…563, 286. Does this prove that Weekly Standard and National Review readers are illiterate? That there are no conservatives in America? That people can just get administration press releases for free? That cherry-picked book sale stats don’t mean much of anything? I report, you decide…

…UDPATE: Patrick will probably regret revealing his access to Neilsen Bookscan, since I’ll undoubtedly badger him about data the next time I see him, but in terms of Simon’s claim, he can confrim that it’s Sadly, No!

As of this morning, for Reynolds’ An Army of Davids (February 2006), Bookscan reports 1716 retail sales and 2609 “discount” sales, for a total of 4325. As of this morning, for Armstrong and Kos’s Crashing the Gate (March 2006), Bookscan reports 2598 retail sales and 1804 “discount” sales, for a total of 4402. In other words, despite the fact that it’s been available for four fewer weeks, Kos and Armstrong’s book has now clocked Bookscan sales in excess of Reynolds’. Notably, several hundred more full-price sales. This is leaving aside the fact that Kos and Armstrong’s book is currently at #40 on Amazon, whereas Reynolds’ is at #801.

Greenwald has more about Drudge and the wankosphere.