The Empire Business

Mr. Adrian Zackheim is a New York publishing mogul who swings enough wood to rate +1,500 words in the New York Times detailing every fussy little detail of his engagement, his wedding, his floral arrangements and and the flavor of his wedding cake.

He is also a New York publishing mogul who, in 2003, took a long look at the already-saturated but incredibly profitable business of binding and selling wingnut hatespeech to bigots and morons at a yooooge markup and said "Me too!"

Here is Mr. Zackheim from a 2003 interview explaining his decision to get into the business of binding and selling wingnut hatespeech to bigots and morons: (with emphasis added):

...

It's not all that complicated. Penguin is the number two trade book publisher in the U.S. We have tremendous reach in this market. That has given us an opportunity to interact with a huge audience. We weren't addressing the conservative opportunity head on. We were publishing excellent voices, but by no means a comprehensive mix. We weren't representing opinions on the right, and we wanted to avail ourselves full time of the best people from this side of the political arena. For a publisher, finding the best authors and helping them reach the largest available audience is simply a good business opportunity

There is no discontinutity* between our conservative line and anything else we're doing. It's like any other good publishing program. Our business line, Portfolio for example, now occupies a leading position we didn't hold before—because we're focused on consistently offering the best books to the broadest possible audience within the business market.

/brief driftglass aside/  "discontinutity" is misspelled in the original text, which is such a delightful irony in an article about the "Rebirth if Conservative Publishing in New York" that I thought I'd just leave it there -- the cherry on top of a three-scoop turd sundae /end brief driftglass aside/

One such "excellent voice" that Mr. Zackheim bound and sold to  bigots and morons was "The Truth About Hillary: Followed By A Long-Ass Secondary Title Because Those Are Popular" by Edward Klein.  It was a book so spectacularly shoddy that it took Media Matters around 45 seconds to fact-check it to death (because apparently "fact checking" is not an editorial service on offer at Mr. Adrian Zackheim's Sentinel HC.)  A book of such epic FAIL that several prominent Conservatives took a big public dump on it.  From Wikipedia:

 "Why on earth would you put such a terrible story in your book...that looks to be flimsily sourced at that?" -- Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review.

"...one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through." -- New York Post columnist John Podhoretz 

"Mr. Klein’s title led me to believe that his book would be pointing out these little hypocrisies, but instead he grovels below the belt — delving into the Clintons’ sex life, which is none of our business."-- Alicia Colon of the New York Sun,

"...assumes the market is conservative and conservatives are stupid." -- Wall Street Journal resident bar fly, Peggy Noonan

So why bring this up today?

Because Mr. Adrian Zackheim's "best person" with an "excellent voice" this month is Ann Coulter, whose latest visit to the wingnut welfare feeding trough -- a national book tour promoting Bigotry For Dummies "In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!" -- has been somewhat glitched by the fact that on the day the book dropped, the actual Donald Trump blew an 11-million-undocumented-worker-sized hole in the predicate on which her latest shitpile of words is based.

Which the lovely and talented Blue Gal has detailed here at Crooks & Liars:

Ann Coulter's Fabulous Twitter Meltdown: My Book! My Book!

From where I stand in a cornfield a million miles from the New York publishing industry there are many things I cannot know about Mr. Adrian Zackheim.  However, what I do know for certain is that he clearly does not care the tiniest shit about publishing the "excellent voices" of "the best people" on the Right. What I can also ascertain even from a very long way away is that he obviously does care a great deal about money, and status and being able to enjoy the finer things in life.  

And what I can also see very clearly even though half a continent and several dozen social castes separate us is that, like any other drug kingpin who lives large on the misery and desperation of people he never has to look in the eye,  Mr. Adrian Zackheim doesn't much care where the money comes from, as long as it keep coming.