Book smart: The commodification of truth?

While I'm delighted this brash bunch of brazenly outspoken Republican turncoats – O'Neill, Clarke, John Dean – has decided to excoriate the thuggish Axis of Weevils Bushwah administration for its lying, thieving incompetence in the War on Errorism, yadda-yadda-yadda, I am way uncomfortable at their timing – you know, this suddenly oh-so-trendy practice of whistleblowers signing million-dollar book contracts and withholding shocking revelations or caustic criticisms until, well, publication date.

How crass. The culture's thoroughly contaminated with creeping commercialism and the commodification of truth. If you want to save the world, why wait for your book to come out? So you can say: "Buy my book"?

TRENDING: Take heart, patriots! These 3 House members are the future of the GOP

Let those who seek to tell the truth, simply tell it. Dispense with the promotional agenda. After you quit, get fired, leave, get passed over, suffer some other indignity, discover a vat of writhing ideological snakes in the workplace, or see the light – take a deep breath, gather up your documentation, then prepare a statement, issue a report, set up a website, hold a press conference.

Share.

Make the information available to the public immediately. You can even create CDs on your own computer for a few pennies each and give them away for free. And since you really care so much about your country, file a public-interest lawsuit or something. Then write the book.

Don't be coy. Enough manipulation! Stop messing with our minds and toying with our wallets.

Must everything in American life be geared to a megabucks book contract? Have we become a nation of media whores? (Wait – don't answer that!) I'm sick of all this self-interest – it's not enlightened in the least. Stash the agenda and spill.

And do hurry up, please – it's late – we have a train to catch, before terrorists plant any more hidden bombs under the railroad tracks.

Standing on my front steps waiting for a grocery delivery the other morning, I notice two bearded al-Qaida-esque fellas walking by with big-lensed cameras around their necks, overly interested in our houses.

"What's up?" I ask.

"Great houses," one says. "Must be from the colonial era."

"Originally servants quarters for mansions the next block over," I reply. "Far as I know, they date back to 1850."

"Reminds me of New York."

"Who you shooting for?"

"We're covering Toni Collette for the New York Post."

I tell them I just saw her in "Japanese Story," an uplifting Australian film about an intercultural romantic disaster in the Outback. She was terrific as a geologist who wouldn't take schist from anyone.

We exchange g'ddays and, as they move on, I notice – clogging the far end of my street – several movie trucks, a generator, Klieg lights, a steam table, two rows of bicycles, and a wheelbarrow full of daffodils and forsythia.

A psychic predicted Hollywood would beat a path to my door, but this is ridiculous.

Later, leaving to do errands, I turn in the direction of a distant crowd on the sidewalk around the corner. But, no, some bozo asks me to cross to the other side of Spruce Street.

"What's that, a crime scene?" I tease.

"We're doing TV."

"Oh, what?"

"In Her Shoes."

I know that book. It's big with nannies. Local journalist rejected by 51 agents before she gets a multi-book contract, quits job to write "chick lit," sells her second novel to Hollywood for a mini-series. Now they're touting it as possible successor to "Friends."

Inspiring story for downtrodden authors everywhere.

I head out in the opposite direction for my current favorite store, the Dollar Tree.

Then it hits me – I realize what Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and Ayman al-Zawari must really be up to lately ...

Ayieeeee! They're holed up writing their blockbusters!

• "Saddam, the Untold Story!" No wonder he's reportedly having "fun" with his not-so-grand inquisitors. He's saving his best stuff for his book!

• "Osama in Crawford: Texas Tommies, or, Riding Shotgun with Georgie-Boy." You're not gonna find this baby until he meets his book deadline!

• "Mullah Omar's Radicalist Recipes for Religious Fervor: Revenge, a Dish Best Served Cold." Hold the Bromo!

• Cleverest of all, al-Zawari's recasting "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" as an encoded al-Qaida training manual. Consider these lines from the original 11th-century masterpiece:

  The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
  Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
  Nor all thy Tears wash out a jot of it.

Happy reading!