Newsweek plugs its book

The Kerry...er...what? Interview? I don't know, it's just weird. It is a window into the political newsroom and how conventional wisdom becomes a perpetual motion machine.

Kerry has not given any formal interviews since his defeat. But on Nov. 11, nine days after the election, Kerry summoned a NEWSWEEK reporter to his house on Boston's fashionable Louisberg Square. He wanted to complain about NEWSWEEK's election issue, which he said was unduly harsh and gossipy about him, his staff and his wife. (The 45,000-word article, the product of a yearlong reporting project, is being published next week as a book, "Election 2004," by PublicAffairs.)

Despite, or because of, a somewhat stoical and severe New England upbringing, Kerry has a tendency to natter at his subordinates, to blame everyone but himself. ("Did he whine?" was the first question one senior Kerry aide asked of the NEWSWEEK reporter who had recently been to see Kerry.) On this damp November evening, he appeared alone in the house; he answered the door and showed his visitor into a cozy, book-lined drawing room. His face was deeply lined, his eyes drooped, he looked like he hadn't slept in about two years. But his manner was resolute, his mood seemed calm, even chipper.

Nov. 11? Nine days after the election? Wouldn't this story have been a wee bit more interesting if they'd run it in November?

Ah, but I forgot. The book hadn't been published yet. So this is the story of an interview Newseek did just after the election. It's not the interview, just what Kerry looked like when the interview was conducted. Weird.

Go ahead and plug the book, but this was bait and switch.