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At the risk of immodesty, @davidfrum, the biggest book of the Trump era is the "Proof" duology: two trade press-published NYT bestsellers; 1,400 pages total; 6,500 major-media citations; no errors. Thousands have tried to get media to pay attention to the duology and have failed.
@davidfrum 1/ When Woodward publicly argued the Russia case was a nothing-burger, I and the small group of Americans and Brits who've published bestsellers on the Russia case were livid because Bob's book was a gossamer web of false "reconstructed" conversations, all provided by Team Trump.
@davidfrum 2/ Bob hadn't researched Russia, so he knew nothing about the case, but because people like you, @davidfrum, treated FEAR as *the* book of the Trump era (solely because of Bob's fame), Bob became convinced of it, too: the idea his book would be the final word on everything Trump.
@davidfrum 3/ If media had been 20% less snobbish about allowing new authors and researchers into its fraternity, we wouldn't be sitting here three years into the Trump presidency wondering how America's authors got Trump so wrong. Because they didn't—only the really famous, fêted ones did.
@davidfrum 4/ So which would've been more useful, @davidfrum: writing an article in a high-profile mag explaining why readers should skip Bob's book, or writing an article in a high-profile mag directing readers to the book you wish Bob had written, which *was* written, but by someone else?
@davidfrum 5/ We underestimate how much of the reason America's in crisis are certain features of our culture that are nicely encapsulated by the idea that we'd rather kvetch for clicks about a bad book by a famous author then direct readers to a valuable book by a less well-known one. /end
