lies a distance even greater than the 8,000 miles from Washington to Baghdad.

The Iraq war was always a long shot. But it was made immeasurably longer by its principal architects in Washington, including Douglas Feith, who ignored expert advice, reserved most of their effort for fighting each other in ideological battles, and regarded the Iraqi people as an afterthought.

It is all symptomatic of the pursuit of the demands of the Washington consensus.

[George Freeman, the Times Co.'s assistant general counsel, met with the Washington bureau last week to address staff complaints.] There was so much rumor and untruth and speculation going around, ... I wouldn't characterize it as people being unhappy. People had a lot of questions and concerns. I hope to some degree I assuaged the concerns.

That Monday after we lost to Washington, that's when everything hit the fan. But instead of succumbing to the environment at that particular time, it was more or less, 'What are we going to do to make this thing turn around?' We decided we had a lot more football to play, and what a story it would be if we turned it around and made the playoffs. And we did just that.

To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator. The company claims to want a more literate world - and it came along when the book world was in distress, offering a vital new source of sales.