Barnes & Noble Tout "Diversity" and First Amendment Rights (?) in Defense of Selling OJ's "Book."

This is the actual response I received after e-mailing B&N regarding their decision to carry OJ's The Idiot's Guide to Killing Your Ex-Wife and Her Boyfriend. I'm especially amused by their comparing it in the same sentence to tomes by Mark Twain, William Shirer and the Dr. James Dobson, long-rumored ghost author of all versions of The Bible.

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your e-mail. As booksellers, we carry thousands of books whose subject matter somemay find offensive. Over the years, we have received countless requestsand demands to stop selling everything from The Merchant of Venice to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, even The Living Bible.

At Barnes & Noble, we take our mission very seriously - to be a valuable resource to our customers, bringing books and ideas to the public. We live in a diverse culture, and that diversity is reflected in the wide range of interests, philosophies, and lifestyles of our customers. The guiding principle we use is to offer every book in print and allow our customers to decide what to buy and read. After all, freedom of choice is at the very heart of our democratic society. It is understandable that some people may strongly oppose the content of a particular title and choose not to purchase it; we respect their opinions. In return, we ask that our customers respect our responsibility to offer a selection of reading materials as diverse as the society in which we live - the very society that grants the freedom for these materials to exist.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Customer Service Representative

I don't care what the fuck they use as an excuse, but they could at least have the decency to leave the venerable Mark Twain out of this. Just when I thought they couldn't go any lower...