Cheaper than a mortgage

Sean Hackbarth explains why book sales go up during recessions:

Instead of buying expensive dinners, vacations, and cars people hunker down in their homes. Things like DVDs, music, and books become relatively more valuable. Consumers see a bigger bang for their buck with something that gives them 2, 3, 4, even 10 hours of entertainment . . .
Less-expensive paperbacks are chosen over more-expensive hardcovers.

Ah, but what about less-expensive hardbacks, Sean? Did you know that as of today, you can order Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party at Amazon.com for a paltry $10.47?

Talk about about getting a "bang for your buck"! Donkey Cons has got lots of sleazy Democratic sex scandals (bang) and bribery (bucks). Ted Kennedy! Barney Frank! Alcee Hastings! And of course, everybody's favorite unindicted co-conspirator, Frank Murtha! The gang's all here ... oh, did I say "gangs"? Yeah, you'll also learn about the connection between gangsters like Lucky Luciano and the Democratic Party.

If you're concerned about inflation, unemployment and the housing crisis, what could be a more enjoyable diversion than Donkey Cons, a 228-page romp through the corrupt history of the Democratic Party?

UPDATE: Clicking over to Amazon just now, I saw one of those Amazon reviewers who slammed the book in a totally bogus manner. To wit:

Many reviewers have mentioned the book is heavily footnoted, which it is. However, if you go to the back of the book, you will discover that the book division of a tabloid magazine is one of their favorite sources.

WTF? I have no idea what this clown is talking about. Just to give you a sample of how Donkey Cons is actually sourced, let's turn to page 238 and look at the sources listed for Chapter 3:

• 1. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960
• 2. Christopher Matthews, San Francisco Examiner
• 3. David Greenburg, Slate.com
• 4. Amity Schlaes, Townhall.com
• 5. Mazo and Hess, Nixon: A Political Portrait, 1968
• 6. Peter Carlson, The Washington Post . . .

. . . and so forth, down the list of 45 endnotes for a 16-page chapter -- reputable writers and sources, sometimes with multiple sources cited for a single note. Where that idiot's claim about "the book division of a tabloid magazine" came from, I honestly don't know. What I do know is that I checked his other reviews and found he gave a 5-star review to a scaremongering book about global warming, which gives you an idea where he's coming from. He also makes one of the most common bogus criticisms of Donkey Cons, to wit:

[W]hile I didn't expect this book to be balanced, I did expect, at a minimum, that the authors would acknowledge that both parties have skeletons to hide. From this book, you would expect that the Democrats are fleecing everyone, while the Republicans are clean as snow, which is not the case.

That is just a damned lie. In Chapter 2 of Donkey Cons, on pages 30-33, we list the names of every single member of Congress convicted of felonies or punished for ethics violations from 1975 through 2005. There were 15 Republicans compared to 46 Democrats, and all are named in the same chapter. It is simply a fact that, during this 30-year span, Democrats in Congress were about three times as likely as Republicans to become involved in serious crimes or ethical scandals.

Ever since Donkey Cons was published, Lynn Vincent and I have had to deal with this stupid and dishonest charge -- "Yeah, but what about the Republicans?" -- even though we've repeatedly pointed out where the corrupt/criminal Republicans are named in the book. Not to mention the fact that the book's final chapter deals extensively with the role of Republicans (and Democrats) in the Abramoff scandal.

As I've often said over the past two years, if someone wants to write a book about corrupt Republican, nobody's stopping them. But if anyone goes to the trouble of actually counting the crimes and scandals and making an honest comparison between the two parties, they won't be able to avoid the conclusion we reached in Donkey Cons, namely that the Democrats are far worse when it comes to corruption.

So please order the book. If we can sell out the hardback edition, maybe we can talk them into commissioning a paperback edition -- and then we'll be to add an updated afterword, talking about such fun Democratic scandals as Eliot Spitzer and Kwame Kilpatrick.