This? This is the big plan to save the publishing industry?

“Now, for the first time, ‘We The People’ are privy to our new leader’s epistolary back-and-forths on his wily hand-held device. We’re about to discover that his emails (and the replies, from his wife and daughters, Biden, Palen, Rush, Hannity, the new first puppy and even Bush) are so tuned in to the language of electronic correspondence they come hilariously close to the brink of legibility.” That’s a blurb for “Obama’s Blackberry,” by Kasper Hauser. Essentially, it’s a picture book that pretends to be the contents of Obama’s handheld communications device. This concept has several flaws, but allow me to exemplify the most glaring. This is the text message conversation that led to me reviewing this book.

LeisurelyEditor: Hey, you wanna review a book people might actually read this week?

Da_HeMan: You know I prefer more high-minded fare.

LeisurelyEditor: Wut I meant was, do you want to keep your job?

Da_HeMan: What did you have in mind?

As it turns out, most people are tremendously boring – that’s why no one ever wants to read your journal. Even when you fill in Sarah Palin and Barack Obama for me and my editor, it’s still not all that funny.

I may be spoiling the book for you, but there are only four jokes in the whole publication: Sarah Palin is gullible, Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks he’s “Rambo,” Joe Biden doesn’t do much and Bill Clinton is horny. Almost every page involves a variation on one of those themes.

This is not a premise for a full-fledged book (which makes sense, since it’s only 144 pages long). It’s barely a premise for a blog, which I imagine is where the idea came from.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the Internet is a wonderful thing, filled with all manner of LOLcats, tweets and various other creations that, by all rights, never should have existed. But there’s a reason we find people who post Craigslist personals, Pete Hoekstra and their ilk hilarious – the cost.

Comedy works on the Internet because: a) it’s a short-form medium, and b) it’s free. We don’t give anything (save our eyeballs to advertisers), so we don’t expect a lot. Comedy depends on expectations – if you aren’t expecting much, it’s usually funnier than something that’s over-hyped. This is why Larry the Cable Guy was able to have a career for five or six years.

After the Internet has been downloaded, proofread, bound and had a price sticker slapped on it, it’s no longer funny. Hell, it doesn’t even work for newspapers and they were around before the Internet. I’m going to enlighten you with a novel concept I’ve discovered: People don’t want to pay for things they can get for free.

All that being said, I’d recommend reading this book. Or at least, go to Amazon and click on the “Look inside!” button. It’s pretty much the same thing, and you can save yourself $14 and the 20 minutes it takes to get through the whole thing.