So I taped a segment on the O’Reilly Factor around 6:30 pm, discussing Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France–and 10 minutes after it airs on TV tonight there’s already a negative review on Amazon.com. I don’t mind the negative reviews. If the Francophiles aren’t ticked, then I’ve done something wrong. But this one makes me laugh out loud: The book “doesn’t even rise to stupidity … This is absolutely useless trash posing as serious thought.” Etc. There are a few gratuitous swipes at President Bush. Then there’s this: “The ‘revelations’ and nuggets of wisdom can be digested, if you can call it that, in mere minutes in a bookstore, and are not worth your money, unless of course, you bow before the altar of Bill O’Reilly every night.” Like the guy has even touched a copy of the book in the bookstore–his whole critique is based on (to paraphrase him) “mere minutes watching the tube.”
He also failed to notice that O’Reilly and I actually got into an scrap over the merits of the consumer boycott of French goods–O’Reilly’s a big advocate; I sympathize with the motivations but wonder about its effectiveness and suspect it ultimately may feed French delusions of grandeur. It was actually an interesting exchange. Maybe I’ll write a piece on it.
In the meantime, the O’Reilly Factor airs again tonight at 11 pm EST. I can’t wait to see if there’s another dumb review posted on Amazon.com before midnight.