Scarcity of Anti-Kerry Book on Shelves Raises Questions

While a best-selling book has brought questions about Senator Kerry’s Vietnam record to the front burner, some New Yorkers are asking another question: Where is the book?“Unfit for Command,” the centerpiece of the critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s war experience that has played out in the press recently, rose to the top of best-seller lists this week, but shoppers say they have had a hard time finding it at New York bookstores, where it’s either sold out or given minimal promotion.Some wonder if booksellers around this heavily Democrat city are choosing not to carry it at all, as supporters of Mr. Kerry have attempted to pull the book from shelves.“When any political book by a celebrity author has appeared, Borders, particularly, provides prominent displays,” said Bob D’Agostino, a teacher in the Bronx who has been unable to find the book at his local bookstores.Borders and a competitor chain, Barnes & Noble, along with a number of independent bookshops, have denied any political bias, blaming high demand and a limited first pressing of the book by its publisher, Regnery, for the book’s absence from store shelves.The publisher “couldn’t keep up with public demand for the title. The demand was not anticipated by the publisher nor the retailers,” said a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman, Mary Ellen Keating.At least one local bookstore, Book-Court in Cobble Hill, was reluctant to carry “Unfit for Command,” ordering the book only after some customers demanded it.“I definitely don’t want to sell it,” one of the store’s owners, Henry Zook, said. “From an objective, business point of view, we should have one or two copies just because some inquiring minds might be interested in it, or, for instance, if somebody wants to examine it for flaws.”Chris Finan, a spokesman for the American Booksellers Association for Free Expression, an anti-censorship group, said it was uncommon for booksellers to choose not to carry books for political reasons, adding that it was unlikely that many were refusing to carry “Unfit for Command.”“There are probably some booksellers who aren’t selling it on principle, and they have that right by the First Amendment,” he said. “From time to time, booksellers make decisions on what they’re going to sell, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.”Since Regnery pushed up the book’s release date, to mid-August from September 1, political talk shows and Web logs have been buzzing with fervent debate about the claims made by authors John O’Neil and Jerome Corsi, who challenge the validity of Mr. Kerry’s war medals. But discussions by TV and armchair pundits have also veered to the difficulty of finding the book, with some crying liberal conspiracy.On Friday, for instance, conservative radio talk show host Kevin McCullough reported on his Web site that Borders was “undergoing a ‘recall’ of the book and stopping sales.”But at Borders and most other city booksellers, managers say that business trumps politics and that they would eagerly sell the book if only they could get their hands on it.Peggy Zieran, the manager at a Borders store on Long Island, said many would-be customers suspected the store of suppressing the book.“We are a retailer, we don’t censor,” she said. “If we had that book we’d be making a lot of money.”While most bookstores await new shipments from the publisher, which will have printed half a million copies of the book by next week, visits to a number of local Barnes & Noble stores found the book in ample supply and selling well.Nonetheless, a handful of store managers say they are still receiving complaints that the book has not been given the same prominent display as bestselling books by liberal authors like filmmaker Michael Moore and columnist Maureen Dowd.“A few weeks ago we heard people complaining about our displays of left-wing books, and now people are upset that we’re not promoting this book enough,” said an employee at the Barnes & Noble on West 66th Street.Only three of the store’s two-dozen copies of the book were on display on the first floor, next to a large stack of copies of President Clinton’s biography, “My Life.”

Scarcity of Anti-Kerry Book on Shelves Raises Questions

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