Surprise ending -- he cuts the discount rate . . . by 1/4 point!

Uh oh, it looks like those pesky news outlets are at it again, spoiling book endings before they ever hit the shelves. As the New York Times asks:

What does the currently ubiquitous Alan Greenspan have in common with George J. Tenet, Bob Woodward and Harry Potter?

Is that a rhetorical question? No? Well then, let me guess. They all have penises? Apparently, that's not it, as the Times continues:

In each case publishers prepared elaborate marketing plans to roll out their books under strict embargoes, hoping to control the books’ reception and focus attention at just the moment they hit store shelves. But each time, news organizations were able to buy early copies and write about the contents, creating a publisher’s nightmare of managing bruised relationships with other media outlets — or fans — that thought they had exclusive first rights to the material.

(bonus round: if that's what they have in common, which one is, you know, a little lacking in his "special area?")

(Alan Greenspan: 500 years young)

Who, precisely, is to blame for spilling the beans on these exciting tales of derring-do? As you suspected, one of the usual culprits:

The task of unveiling a big book— especially one with great news interest or enormous popular demand — has changed dramatically in recent years as players in an increasingly competitive news media seek to be the first to unveil content, and the Internet makes it more difficult to keep books under wraps.

Damn you, internet! First porn, then Facebook and now this. Can't you just leave us alone? Or at least just limit your content to this blog and YouTube?

Wait a minute, though, aren't I forgetting the real victim here? No, I'm not talking about Penguin Press, now unlikely to recoup the 8.5 million dollar advance it paid to Alan Greenspan, whose withered face suggests that most of the money will be spent by his progeny, or perhaps Ayn Rand's. I'm talking about the eager reader who picked up Greenspan's book, Age of Turbulence, excited to read it on the plane or during a vacation, only to have all the twists and turns spoiled by the Wall Street Journal's spread on the book, which ran before its release.

Everyone knows Greenspan's memoir is like a Grisham book or one of those double-cross filled heist movies: if you know the big twist, it sucks the fun out of the rest. For example, now I won't fall for all the red herrings and false clues, like when Greenspan describes equivocating over whether or not to cut interest rates or when he has violent debates with himself about which word to apply to the economy in his press conferences -- "robust" or "overheated?"

Here's a question for the internet and the journalists who use it in place of actually "investigating": what do Harry Potter, Alan Greenspan's exciting life, the Iraq war, and climate change have in common?

We don't want to know the ending.