That’s what he said, back in 2001. The full quote was, “I just want you to know that I’ve never had another job other than writing about the Mac — except for the New York Times thing that I’m currently doing — and I just want to thank you for 15 years of my career.” I told him, “Well, we’re ready to provide you with 15 more years of writing.” And you know what? We’re happy to have kept up our end of the bargain, and frankly we’re sick of the crap that this fine young man has had to put up with over this ginned-up “conflict of interest” issue. It’s been around for years, and now he’s even being harassed by the editors at the New York Times, who frankly should be thanking their lucky stars to have David even bother to write for their lousy rag.

For a little background on this whole hooha over David’s books, go here. To sum up, the bitter, twisted freaks and haters have been drumming up this FUD for years, even though, as David points out, most of his books have nothing to do with Apple, and all you have to do is look at the screen shot above, or at this page and this page and this page and this page on the O’Reilly site to see what he’s talking about. Why, there are hardly any Apple-related books in his catalog! Or go to David Pogue’s own Web site and look at the books advertised down the right-hand column. Or check out the page where he sells his older books at half price. Does this look like a guy who does a lot of Apple-related manual writing? Come on.

Yes, David did once thank me for providing him 15 years of steady and lucrative work — the only real job he’s ever had. But come on. All the hacks say stuff like that when they’re trying to butter you up. You should hear the way little Jim Goldman of CNBC blows sunshine up my ass before we go on air for our completely unscripted and unrehearsed “news interviews.” Jimmy G. makes Pogue look like an amateur, believe me.

Finally, here is David singing a love song for me at Macworld last January (skip to 3:00 in the video) and once again, before anyone takes this out of context, please just remember that this is no indication of any kind of bias or fondness or anything on David’s part. David sings songs like this for everybody. Seriously, he does. Mwah. Love you too, David.