‘Fire and Fury’ unleashed

At the rate President Trump has been firing off tweets about what purports to be a tell-all book about his first year in the White House you’d think the president had negotiated a share of the profits.

Yesterday in the nation’s capital — and elsewhere — people lined up at bookstores to be the first to grab a copy of Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which the publisher decided to release ahead of its previous publication date (originally set for Tuesday). Not since the Harry Potter series has one book caused such a flurry of activity — shooting to No. 1 on best-seller lists even before its actual release.

Now many of its best moments and most salacious details were already out there — with several media outlets publishing extensive excerpts. Those excerpts touched off the first presidential tweet-storm, aimed at his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, whose salty language and unbridled criticisms were widely quoted in the book.

Then the president’s lawyers threatened to sue the publisher, Henry Holt, if it didn’t halt release of the book — and apologize for its content — an unprecedented threat from a sitting president. Holt responded by moving up the release date to yesterday morning.

Now the book itself may well be replete with errors, but when the president can’t stop commenting on it, well, you can’t buy publicity like that.