TOMMY FRANKS’ NEW BOOK, AMERICAN SOLDIER, IS NUMBER ONE on the New York Times bestseller list, but it’s not getting a lot of attention. Max Boot explains:

It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks’s blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.

To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that “our mission in Afghanistan never suffered” as a result.

Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, “I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime.”

Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory — a judgment largely vindicated by events.

I hate to buy into a theory as seemingly simplistic and cynical as “if it makes Bush look good, it’ll be buried” — but I can’t deny its explanatory power.

UPDATE: Thoughts from a bookseller on this phenomenon.