Unseemly Behavior of Wead

The New York Times reports that the evangelical speaker and author Doug Wead has promised to give up all royalties for his recently published book, The Raising of a President: The Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation's Leaders, because the book contains quotes from conversations the author secretly recorded with George W. Bush, without the latter's knowledge, in the two years before his election in 2000.

I don't think that this is enough. Wead should never have used the quotes in his book, and his editors should have made sure that the author had permission to use them. If he deceived his publisher in that regard, he should be tried for fraud. As soon as the deception was revealed, the publisher should have withdrawn the book from publication. As it stands, the ultimate outcome wil simply be more publicity for a book which is partly the result of an utterly unethical journalistic practice. This stinks.