In Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” about a book burning dystopia, Captain Beatty sums up his philosophy of “people control” to “fireman” Guy Montag in this way:

Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

And with that bit of philosophical fluff, Montag goes about his happy way, charged with his book burning mission to suppress political thought, action, and other “slippery stuff.” Well, the fictional Captain Beatty would also be proud of his real-life fireman New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller.

Recently, Keller announced a suspicious change in the liberal rag’s longtime policy for some political books on its influential hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list. Now, as Dick Morris noted, for the first time since 1942, some political hardcover books currently on the list will be reclassified for the paper’s lesser known “advice” and “how to” and “miscellaneous” list. What books could those possibly be?

The current Big Three, of course: Mike Huckabee’s “A Simple Government,” Dick Morris and Eileen McGann’s Revolt!, and Frank Luntz’ “Win.” All three authors are Fox News contributors. Morris has had nine previous best sellers – all on the Times hardcover list. Now, instead of the hardcover list, the “A Simple Government,” “Revolt!” and “Win” ranked #2, #3, and #6, respectively, were dumped into the Times advice and how-to classification.

Why?

According to Morris, this change is an attempt by Keller to negatively impact conservative book sales. “The ghettoization of the Fox News books inside the How To list has an important impact on sales. It means that many stores won’t put “Revolt!,” “Simple Government,” and “Win” up front with the best sellers but will assign them shelf space back with cookbooks, marital advice, and diet books,” said Morris in his blog.

Keller’s prejudice against all things Fox News is well-known. In a speech before the New York Press Club Keller said, “I think if you’re a regular viewer of Fox News, you’re among the most cynical people on planet Earth. I cannot think of a more cynical slogan than ‘Fair & Balanced.’”

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Pollster Frank Luntz is trying to hawk his new poll on gun laws commissioned by the left-wing group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He’s trying to sell the concept that NRA members are just as interested in “common-sense gun policies” as anti-gun nuts and that legislators should take this into account when crafting future anti-gun legislation. The problem is that this poll (.pdf at link) is misleading in some important ways, and the fact that the devil is in the details is totally glossed over.

In an op ed in the Los Angeles Times written by Luntz and Tom Barrett, gun owners are compared favorably with non-gun owners over their feelings on gun banning laws. “The culture war over the right to bear arms isn’t much of a war after all,” the pair tells us. “As it turns out, there is a lot everyone agrees on.”

And this main point serves as the biggest problem with Luntz’s poll. Of course everyone will claim he’s for “common-sense” firearms laws. But the first thing that anyone will find out when discussing concrete policies is that disagreement quickly reigns when people start getting specific. An assumption that everyone “agrees” on just what common sense means disappears pretty quickly when the details are laid out. (more…)