Many people track the success of book sales by just checking the best sellers at Amazon.com. If you did that on Saturday, you’d see the folks at Amazon are providing a little promotional blitz for CNN’s Bush-bashing ranter Jack Cafferty and his new book “It’s Getting Ugly Out There.” (Did he have to put his face on the cover to underscore the point?) It might explain why the book is at #83 today. At the top of the best-seller pages is a pic of the Cafferty book and the headline "Cafferty Spells It Out," followed by this promotional blurb:

Jack Cafferty, who appears on CNN's The Situation Room, voices the views, hopes, and fears of the average American in his inimitable style. Now, in It's Getting Ugly Out There, he brings his level-headed wisdom to bear on the most critical issues facing us today.

It's apparently "level-headed wisdom" and the Voice of the People when Cafferty said he hoped that fat Karl Rove ends up indicted in an orange jumpsuit, or that Brit Hume interviewing Dick Cheney is like Bonnie interviewing Clyde.

His book's Amazon page also has an almost-two-minute promotional video from Senor Cranky, in which he declared that his employer CNN is the finest cable news network in all the world, and that his "electronic pen pals" who send their "finest, funniest E-mails" sparked his best work in the book. It also had the usual Perot poseur's attempts to be folksy. "My new book is no Sermon on the Mount." (You can say that again.) He's the "ombudsman for the working class guy in Omaha grinding it out 50 hours a week." And, unsurprisingly, "If you can’t laugh about some of this, you have to go out and shoot yourself."

I'm sure other broadcast talkers would like this kind of selling help, like Laura Ingraham, who's selling better than growly Cafferty crossing the country promoting her new tome Power to the People, which came out on September 11. You wouldn't have noticed from the old Barnes & Noble e-mail they sent out that day. It was another liberal-favoring lineup, and especially pimped for the public broadcasters (we're so shocked, shocked that they are out there cashing in.)

The big headline shrieked: "New From Ken Burns." It’s the spinoff book from his new World War II documentary. B&N wants you to buy "this stunning companion to the highly anticipated PBS documentary." It even discounts the high-priced $50 volume to just $31.50.

Just underneath is a promo for NPR’s faux-folksy leftist Garrison Keillor and his new novel "Pontoon: a Novel from Lake Wobegon." B&N oozes, "Full of richly drawn characters, sly wit, and indelible descriptions of everyday life in the heartland, Pontoon is another unforgettable portrait of everyone's favorite little town."

Just underneath that in Music: why, the CD soundtrack of Ken Burns’ new World War II documentary! One hopes Barnes & Noble is at least getting free underwriting on NPR and PBS for all this back-scratching.

Add the promos for new books from Anti-Defamation League boss Abe Foxman and atheist Steven Pinker and B&N looks about as diverse as an PBS/NPR lineup.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center