Who the hell is this PW article talking to?
For sure, not anyone lacking a conspiracy theory for S&S’s hiring of Mary Matalin:
The new conservative imprint that Republican strategist Mary Matalin is starting up with publisher Simon & Schuster was not the result of some ardent pitching or wooing among houses and publishers; rather, it was the result of a longtime relationship between Matalin and S&S executive v-p and publisher David Rosenthal […] In fact it was Rosenthal–then at Random House–who was the co-editor of [Matalin and Carville’s] All’s Fair […] As if that publishing connection weren’t enough, consider this, the man behind the curtain for this particular happening is none other than Robert Barnett, the Williams & Connolly lawyer who has brokered book deals for both Hillary and Bill Clinton and dozens of other political figures–including a few for Mary Matalin herself.
It all sounds perfectly reasonable, except for PW‘s manic insistence (tumbling “consider this” into a run-on) that reasonable is exactly what it is.