Oh, bloody hell:

In December, New Republic editor Peter Beinart responded to John Kerry's defeat with "A Fighting Faith," a 6,000-word manifesto on the future of the American left. Now Mr. Beinart will be stepping aside to spend the next eight months expanding his theory of New Liberalism into a book for HarperCollins -- for an advance in the mid–six figures.

... rival publishing sources said the deal was worth more than $600,000. Doubleday contemplated offering Mr. Beinart more than $650,000 for a two-book deal, according to a Random House source familiar with the bid.

"If [Mr. Beinart’s deal] is less than that, it’s not a lot less," the source said....

In the publishing business, six hundred grand is a nice piece of change -- it means the book has to sell in New York Times bestseller numbers or it'll lose mnoey. So we're going to get the big push from HarperCollins when this book comes out -- in, not surprisingly, 2006.

The only upside is that I can't imagine a mass audience buying a book based on "A Fighting Faith" -- Beinart says too many nice things about liberalism (in the abstract) to appeal to the mouth-breathers who bought, say, Zell Miller's book, and his simpleminded message (essentially, attack "Islamic fascism" however the Right defines it, in order to save liberalism) isn't going to appeal to the people who buy lefty books. But for the duration of his book tour next year we're going to be bashed over the head with this all over again.