A rash of 1-star reviews for Scott Walker's book "Unintimidated."

At Amazon. Samples:

1. "Wow, this is not a book. it is a 'selfie' by Scott Walker. He has tanked Wisconsin with his corrupt leadership and this book is so poorly written, I'd give it a zero if I could. Don't waist [sic] your money on this advertisement."

2. "This book is a piece of crap written by the most self-serving narcissist to ever come down the pike. This book should be filed under fiction on the shelves....."

3. "Gah. What a terrible person. There should be a zero stars option. Good god. The man is a narcissist....."

4. "Dear dear Scooter's sad attempt to make himself feel important. Scott walkers lies and unabashed disrespect for the state of Wisconsin and the union workers is a waste of your time and money. Shouldn't he be writing a book on 'How to snake your way into Politics'?"

5. "Written by a 10th grader doing their first 'paper.' that sums up the writing style and lack of references. The introduction should have had at least 50-60 references. Non-fiction requires extensive referencing for credibility. Therefore, this book lacks credibility because it is not properly referenced. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for the hallelujah choruses to break out through my Kindle. via the writing it is abundantly clear that the author hates blue collar workers and would like to open sweat shops."

6. "Governor Walker is completely off the deep end! He wrote: 'In other words, if you're a teacher, police officer, fire fighter, snow plow driver or any other kind public servant, you're not only lazy, overpaid and corrupt, but you're also not a church goer... in fact, you're probably a damn Muslim!'--There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to begin...."

Well, you might begin by Googling that quote to find out if Governor Walker really did write that. I found that quote at Uppity Wisconsin/Progressive News from the Cheddarsphere, which was humorously paraphrasing a list of "Top Ten Ways to tell if you Might be a Member of a public sector union." The list of "Top Ten Ways" really does appear in the book. It was a David-Letterman-style comic list that had appeared in The Daily Caller, and Walker tells of reading it to his "nervous" staff to "lighten the mood" during the 2011 protests.  He doesn't restate the list with a punchline — that's Uppity Wisconsin's doing. He just says: "It did the trick, putting them at ease again."

The list does include the item "4. You know by having a copy of the Holy Koran on your desk your job is 100% safe." Why is that supposed to be funny? Why does it belong with things like "2. You have a Democratic congressman’s lips permanently attached to your butt"? I mean, I see how it would belong on a list with the title "Top Ten 'Jokes' that Prove The Daily Caller Should Not Attempt Humor." But other than that.... We can see that Walker thought it was funny enough to use to cheer up the staff and to tell us about in the book, but let's not substitute the Walker-hater's paraphrase!

ADDED: There are 5-star reviews too, but more than twice as many 1-star reviews. Guess how many 4-, 3-, and 2-star reviews? Right: almost none. The current tally:

5 star: 48
4 star: 3
3 star: 1
2 star: 2
1 star: 133

I'd like to see the numbers on how many of these people actually read the book, but then, in some ways a book like this isn't designed to be read. It's designed to be an occasion for interviews about the book and articles that cherry pick excerpts from the book. I'm actually reading the book myself... in large part because I'm a writer who is looking for things to pick and excerpt.

AND: By the way, Uppity Wisconsin's post title — "Walker 'Joke': Teachers, Public Servants are Lazy, Overpaid Heathens" — inadvertently insults Muslims. Neither The Daily Caller nor Scott Walker referred to Muslims as "Heathens." That's Uppity Wisconsin's term, and it is an insult.

ALSO: The (unlinkable) OED gives as the first definition of the noun "heathen": "One who holds a religious belief which is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim; a pagan." And for the adjective: "Of an individual or people: holding religious beliefs of a sort that are considered unenlightened, now esp. ones of a primitive or polytheistic nature; spec. not of the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim faiths."

From the historical quotes, my favorites:

1726 Swift Gulliver II. iii. i. 6, I was sorry to find more Mercy in a Heathen, than in a Brother Christian.
1852 H. B. Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin II. xxviii. 139 It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen among us, than to send missionaries to them.

"NO BID CONTRACT: Michelle O's Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare site..."

Headline today at Drudge, linking here.

The link goes to The Daily Caller, where we learn that Toni Townes-Whitley is a senior vice president at CGI Federal and also graduated from Princeton in the same year as Michelle Obama. Given that over 1,000 highly able persons graduate from Princeton in any given year, it's not that amazing that you'd find a Michelle Obama co-grad somewhere at the executive level of a large corporation, so this story seems a bit dumb, unless...

Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni....

... unless your point is that black people are in a cabal.

Toni Townes ’85 is a onetime policy analyst with the General Accounting Office and previously served in the Peace Corps in Gabon, West Africa. Her decision to return to work, as an African-American woman, after six years of raising kids was applauded by a Princeton alumni publication in 1998.

Jeez, the writing in The Daily Caller is bad! So Townes-Whitley decided to return to work as an African-American woman? What was she before? A white man?

Look, I'm concerned about corruption and the appearance of corruption, but this is a low-quality effort at investigative journalism. And yet think of the traffic that story is getting with the Drudge link. The rewards are there for those who are hot to get them. Fine. You like that story? Then don't whimper about lefties' expressions of contempt for right-wing media.

Young Cory Booker — groping women or appeasing women?

The Daily Caller, apparently hungry to make Cory Booker look bad, has an article with the headline "In college column, Cory Booker revealed time he groped friend, and she resisted." I think we're supposed to find it significant that when he was 15 and making out with a willing partner, on a bed, he put his hand on her breast and she rejected the move. This is nothing, of course, but it's something not because he "groped" a girl, but because he used the incident, years later, to score with women.

He was at Stanford, in peak feminist times — post-Anita Hill, pre-Monica Lewinsky — and the column was titled "So Much for Stealing Second." In the manner of the time, he told his "own personal story" to "make a point" and "make people think":

“When grandiose statements entrenched in politically correct terminology are made, many may listen but few will hear,” Booker continued. “When I hesitated in writing this column, I realized I was basking in hypocrisy. So instead I chose to write and risk.”

Booker the 15-year-old may have been awkward, but Booker the college student is slick, speaking to his female peers the way they wanted. Eschew abstractions and grandiosity. Confess your male transgressions. Within the 1992 feminist environment, getting personal — "risking" — was the inroad to favor. He expresses regret about his susceptibility to "messages that sex was a game, a competition," and he'd seen getting the hand onto the breast as reaching "second base." Ironically, he was still trying to score with women, this time the college women, and admitting that he thought of sex as a game was a way to compete in the new game.

The Daily Caller writer, Charles C. Johnson, was probably a child when Booker wrote that column. Johnson doesn't seem to understand the context at all. Or maybe he understands and he's just shamelessly appropriating this material to launch the rumor that Booker is a sex offender. Is Johnson dumb or malicious? The result is malicious, but I suspect Johnson is dumb, because look at this:

"After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my ‘mark,’” Booker wrote.

Booker didn’t elaborate on what his “mark” was, but whatever happened, it was enough to haunt him for years to come.

His "mark" was obviously the breast. The column is titled "So Much for Stealing Second." I know these kids today have relabeled the bases, but how can you not understand what "mark" means in that context? Or does Johnson understand but maliciously intend to insinuate that Booker reached some other part of the woman? Clue to Johnson: Third base was fondling the genitals, and to get the penis into the vagina was to reach home.

I got to Johnson's nonsense via Instapundit who teased it with "Reverse the sexes and there's no story here." But there is no story here! Instapundit quotes 2 sentences of Johnson's and repeats the words "groped" and "grabbed" to refer to what the 15-year-old did to the girl's breast. But Booker writes of a very slow and gentle move of a hand toward the breast of a female who had intruded on him with "an overwhelming kiss" when he'd offered her a hug at midnight on New Year's Eve. So actually, the sexes were reversed, and Instapundit — in the midst of his sarcasm about how we overlook female sexual aggression — overlooked female sexual aggression.

If anyone was assaulted, it was Booker: "As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss." Then: "As we fumbled upon the bed, I remember debating my next 'move' as if it were a chess game." He was 15, fumbling, and thinking about chess. How old was she? How did they get to that bed? Booker was using what he had to make his feminist points to Stanford women in 1992. He had nothing, but he made something out of nothing for rhetorical purposes to lecture college men about how they ought to behave toward women.

If he did anything wrong, it's that he sought so earnestly to please women, adapting to the preferences they seemed to express, first, by trying to perform appropriately for the woman who imposed "an overwhelming kiss" on him and, then, by trying to talk the talk of the college feminists.

"'Girls' actor leaves show after realizing it is terrible."

Instapundit quotes the Daily Caller headline, which isn't supported by what the actor Christopher Abbott ("Charlie") actually said or supposedly said. The actor's spokesperson said "he’s working on numerous other projects" and "a source" said "Chris is at odds with Lena [Dunham]" and "He didn’t like the direction things are going in." That doesn't mean he thinks the show is terrible. At most he's arguing with Dunham or doesn't like what she's doing with his character. My guess is: He's negotiating his salary.

Note: The show is not terrible. It's just — as sitcoms go — a grim picture. People are young and they get naked and have sex on occasion, and yet it's not fun. It tends to be dismal and dark. You'd think conservatives would know how to take that. Are they dumb or just unwilling to watch the show they berate?