Sometimes, the magnitude of moronicity is mind-boggling.

Over at Newsbusters ("Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias"), Mark Finkelstein breathlessly reports that Barnes & Noble is tweaking search results to pimp Obama's biography:

Shane was reluctant to accuse Barnes & Noble of bias, but I'm not. First, the book industry is notorious for its liberal leanings. Second, every other book on the first two pages of search results contains the search term "God" somewhere in its title. It's difficult to imagine that B&N's search algorithm put Obama's oeuvre, which does not contain the word "God," in second place without some definitely un-divine intervention.

Well. Do you think the search results might have something to do with the occurrence of the term "God" in the editorial reviews? Do you suppose that B&N's own review of the book, which includes a quote in which Obama references God, might be a factor in their search algorithm? And do you suppose their algorithm might take into account which hits for the term "biography" have yielded the most views or sales lately?

Incidentally, a search at bn.com on "faith" "biography" yields McCain's gripping auto-bio in the top 10 results. By Finkelstein's logic, Barnes & Noble must be conspiring to sell McCain to true believers.

More amusing than any imagined conspiratorial tweakage of search results is the actual editorial blurb B&N provided for McCain's book:

Senator John McCain won't win his party's presidential nomination, or even receive the vice presidential nod, but his autobiography can't be seen as anticlimactic. In ways, the failure of his campaign allows us to peruse his relaxed and often self-critical memoir in a leisurely and nonpartisan way….

Life is full of irony. Case in point: search on "Finkelstein get a life" at bn.com for an interesting paired result.

Last 5 posts by David

• Here's an explanation - January 26th, 2012
• Popehat gets results! - January 19th, 2012
• Beclownage de soi chez le TSA - January 10th, 2012
• New Hampshire Primary, 2012 - January 10th, 2012
• What Drives Traffic? The Snort Effect.... - December 9th, 2011