Kitty Kelley Dishes on the Bush Family (Favorable Write-up)

[kskiska]

NEW YORK - When Kitty Kelley, the famously unauthorized biographer of the famous, sits down for an interview, she likes to get personal. She sets her chair next to yours, leans forward when speaking and occasionally underlines an argument with a tap on the knee.

And call her Kitty, please. Not Ms. Kelley.

Author of gossipy, controversial best sellers about Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra, the 62-year-old Kelley has spent the past three and a half years getting as close as she can to the Bush family, talking to those willing to talk, hunting for documents that range from academic records to private memos to tax returns.

Not everybody believes what she writes, but millions still want to read her. Her new book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," comes out this week with more than 700,000 copies in print and an already scandalous reputation for its allegation that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David while his father was president.

"She wouldn't be such a best seller if her books didn't deliver something," says Bob Wietrak, a vice president of merchandising for Barnes & Noble, Inc. "People know she spends a lot of time on her books, does a lot of homework, does a lot of digging and she writes a good story."

more…
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040913/ap_en_ot/kitty_kelley

[Fridays Child]

1. Rated and kicked.

:kick:

[kskiska]

2. I'm buying this tomorrow

(snip)

Kelley laughs. Although she says the book is "not meant to attack," she sure hits hard when she describes President Bush (news - web sites) and first lady Laura Bush as being "more demonstrative to their dogs than to each other," or when she writes of former first lady Barbara Bush: "Behind her grandmotherly facade was a pearl-wearing mugger the equal of Ma Barker."

[Thurston Howell IV]

15. She has a way with words

"Behind her grandmotherly facade was a pearl-wearing mugger the equal of Ma Barker."

Looking forward to reading it.

[REVOLT823]

3. I don't care what anyone says, this book is going to hurt Bush.

People love gossip and are going to eat this up, and it sounds like there is just too much nasty stuff in there to totally discount everything. Hopefully this sways some of those people on the fence and converts a few more GOPers.

[alarcojon]

4. I agree

The book's target audience will think that where there's smoke, there's fire.

I think it would be a tactical error for the left to associate ourselves too closely to the book. We can stay "above the fray" and let the book reach an audience we here at DU don't normally reach.

[yardwork]

9. I agree.

I preordered the book on Amazon for two reasons. I wanted to pump up the sales and I want to read it myself.

But I won't mention the book to undecided voters or Republicans. Kitty is a pro at self-promotion. She doesn't need my help with this. I hope it goes to #1. Snicker.....

And think of the opportunities we'll have to say "Some people say...."

[kskiska]

12. James Wolcott agrees with you

David Frum, wearing surgical gloves and rubber galoshes, wades into the flooded basement of celebrity gossip to tut-tut, tsk-tsk, and pooh-pooh Kitty Kelley's forthcoming book about the Corleones of Kennebunkport. Lurid as its details may be, Frum doesn't believe this controversial title will make much of a diff.

"The reception should sell books and please Kelley's publisher. But will it turn the election? One very much doubts it."

Oh, one does, does one?

Frum, Canadian, has little understanding of the manicured grasp Kelley has on the sordid imagination of America. He has spent too much time with his coauthor Richard Perle plotting to grease America into neverending war to understand what a destructive dynamo in a bouffant is Ms. Kelley.

Only that could explain his bold prediction that The Family will slide off the bestseller list by Columbus Day and be soon forgotten.

The Family is being released next week. Columbus Day is October 11th. Does he really think it won't linger on the bestseller list longer than a month? Once a book hits high on the bestseller list, inertia alone carries it along for weeks, months.

As the author of numerous crummy books, Frum should understand the dynamics of publishing by now, or so "one" would have thought.

http://jameswolcott.com/

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

5. This is going to really be fun to watch.

[Brundle_Fly]

6. GO KITTY

Here is some more damning evidence I whipped up in photosh...er I found.

[Bundbuster]

16. Awww brundle, I love ya!

[demoman123]

7. One virtue of the book is that it contains so many allegations....

The Bush people will have to spend most of their time replying to them.

[AlCzervik]

8. welcome to swiftboat land Georgie!

we all float down here.

[yardwork]

10. The big difference between Kitty Kelley and the Swift Boat Liars

is that everybody knows that the Swifties lied. Their allegations fell apart upon investigation.

Kitty Kelley has never been successfully sueed. Most people think it is because her books are true. Nasty, but true.

[AlCzervik]

13. what this has in common with the sb liars is that hopefully

* will have to spend the next 2 months fighting the accusations off.

[AirAmFan]

19. Kitty just named witnesses to Sharon Bush's cocaine charges on Aaron

Brown's CNN show. She said that Sharon came to her, not she to Sharon; that a third person (and she named him) was present the first time Sharon told her story about cocaine at Camp David; that another third party witnessed the same charges on a second occasion; and that Kelly's agent at William Morris was yet a THIRD witness to Sharon Bush's charges. I think it was this morning she told Matt Lauer that FOUR sets of lawyers had vetted and approved everything in 'The Family'.

She's VERY careful, and evidently she's fearless. She told Brown that Sharon was changing her story because someone had called and told her, "You could find yourself in a dark alley some night!"

[Eloriel]

14. And we should work hard keeping each and every one of those

allegations front and center.

:evilgrin:

I've never been a Kitty Kelly fan, but then I've never read any of her books. I always thought they were mostly just gossip and probably not true at all. NOW, as a result of all I've learned over the past 4 years, I understand fully that that's exactly what TPTB always wanted me to think.

I think I'm gonna have to buy this book.

[PartyPooper]

11. Kitty threads belong in the Lounge.

But, not this one!

:7

[pacalo]

17. Barbara Bush = Ma Barker. I couldn't agree more.

[Pachamama]

18. Can't wait to read this one!

Read her other books in the past....they are delicious tidbits of celebrity gossip....and as much as people put her down, they love "gobbling" her morsels up....And they never seem to be able to sue her...