160,000 copies, according to the _Washington Post_: "Chomsky's new book -- a pamphletlike collection of interviews with the professor -- is titled "9-11." The book, which argues that the war in Afghanistan is morally and legally appalling, not to mention an act of state terrorism, has sold 160,000 copies and three weeks ago ranked ninth on the Washington Post bestseller list. It's been translated into a dozen languages, from Korean to Japanese to two varieties of Portuguese" (Michael Powell, "An Eminence With No Shades of Gray: In a New Bestseller, Noam Chomsky Argues Against the War in Afghanistan," _Washington Post_ 5 May 2002, p. F01, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27441-2002May3.html>). See, also, Michael Massing, "Surprise Best Seller Blames U.S.," _New York Times_ 4 May 2002, <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/arts/04TANK.html>.
Chomsky (not to mention Michael Moore) is certainly much more popular than Bill Bennett:
***** AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN
Noam Chomsky Book on 9/11 Best-seller
Aired May 9, 2002 - 08:18 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
... BENNETT: Well, we may -- I should comment first, Paula, this may be a television first. I wrote a book on the same topic. The net effect of this segment may be to increase sales of the book with a totally opposite point of view of mine. And I say this not as...
ZAHN: Are you just smarting because this book is selling better than yours right now?
BENNETT: No. I'm actually not smarting because although it is selling better than my book, it's not a matter of sour grapes, but there is a matter of I told you so. Let me just give you a little background.
In my book, "Why We Fight," I said at the beginning of that book that there is a small but influential group of critics who will end up blaming the United States for this attack. When I said it, and in a number of reviews of my book, people said that's nonsense. That's ridiculous. There won't be any groundswell of opinion saying that the United States was at fault. Well, you just pointed out 160,000 copies is a pretty substantial number of books. It may be a surprise to some people, but not to me.
Look, Chomsky says in the book that the United States is a leading terrorist state. That's a preposterous and ridiculous claim. We can debate it. You know I'd be happy to be on your show with Chomsky. I'm sure you guys have asked him to come on.
But it's a ridiculous claim. The interesting thing culturally is that this thing is taking hold among intellectuals, having some hold and influence on college campuses, and this is, if I can say, just what I predicted would happen. Everybody said no, you know, the United States, everybody is being patriotic. Everybody is waving the flag. This kind of criticism won't happen. And if there is, if it does happen, there won't be people who will take it seriously.
There are a lot of people who take this view seriously....
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Bill Bennett insults Americans by thinking that he could get political mileage by dissing "intellectuals" and "college campuses." That's to be expected. He does, however, admit that Chomsky is outselling him. -- Yoshie
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