Donald Trump Is Collecting Blurbs

“A dark farce that will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering when it will end.”

One of the most annoying aspects of the book world is blurbs. All books have them, and all publicists have to blast them out in emails to reviewers. But writers hate asking for them, and readers complain about how universally positive they are (no book ever gets bad blurbs). Typically, though, blurbs are reserved for book covers and movie trailers, not politics.

Trump is changing that.

Today, the Trump administration — which has spent the past several days whining that he hasn’t been able to “enjoy” his presidency because he of the criticism leveled against him — decided to counter the millions who marched in the streets with a round-up of blurbs:

So the White House just released this email

 — @mmurraypolitics

Yes, that’s real. Like any good set of blurbs, the Trump team selectively pulled quotes to make mixed or even negative articles seem like rave reviews. Take, for example, the first blurb from The Atlantic in context:

“[I]t’s a lot harder to use that bully pulpit if you’re not always viewed as a winner, so Trump insists he’s a winner even when he is not.

The result, paradoxically, is that he’s coming out as a winner on many issues. Some of these victories may prove to be pyrrhic. Getting shaky and unprepared nominees confirmed is a good way to produce shaky and unprepared Cabinet secretaries. Retaining manufacturing jobs works well until companies start automating and laying people off anyway.”

So that’s where we are at. A famously thin-skinned president starting his administration by lying about how popular he is and sending out blurbs.

No word yet on what Kirkus or Publisher’s Weekly have to say.