Jimmy Moncrief with his book "Everything Obama Knows About The Economy" in Ooltewah on Friday. Moncrief originally had 100 copies of the 100 page book for sale on Amazon and it quickly sold out.OTHER BLANKSMoncrief has launched www.theblankbooks.com for future efforts.There are numerous other gag gift books for sale at sites such as amazon.com, including "Everything Obama Knows About Individual Liberty and Freedom, " Everything Obama Knows about Gun Rights and the Second Amendment."
The fact-checking process for a Chattanooga credit analyst's 200-page book probably took record time. Not even one-tenth of a second.
Open up "Everything Obama Knows About The Economy" and Jimmy Moncrief becomes less of a god of journalism and more like a Republican with a joke: Every page, cover to cover, is blank.
"I'm not trying to start a revolution," said Moncrief, who identifies himself as a fiscal conservative without a favorite GOP presidential candidate. "I just want to make people laugh."
Asked about his inspiration, Moncrief's credits a similar bit of emptiness from Sheridan Simove, who, ahem, wrote a 200-page bestseller titled, "What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex."
"I remember reading that it sold like 3 million copies," said Moncrief, a 30-year-old Memphis native who graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. "I'm a banker. It's not some glamorous job, so I wanted to do something fun and also wanted to make money."
Moncrief said last-minute political gag gift seekers can find his book at the Chattanooga Billiards Club.
On Amazon, where Moncrief's self-published creation is listed as "temporarily out of stock," buyers can pre-order the book for $14.95. Customers who have searched his book also scanned M.T. Pages' "Everything Obama Has Done to Deserve Re-Election," according to Amazon.
Not everyone is a Moncrief fan.
"Selling books is a great way to grow the economy," said Tennessee Democratic Party spokesman Brandon Puttbrese. "It adds to commerce, shipping, transportation and, for this book, garage sales."
An Amazon reviewer, identifying himself as CheddarPants, went a different route.
"While this book isn't remotely original, I do have to admit that it was written to perfectly correspond to the reading ability of most people who don't like President Obama, so I have to give the author credit for knowing his target audience," CheddarPants wrote.
Fifteen of 127 online voters found the review "helpful."