From Whitewater to Paula Jones, Mr. Tyrell has chronicled an unflattering portrayal of our president and his scandals. With wit and sarcasm this author leads the us through a rise to power beginning with an unlikely poor boy from a sleepy hollow called Hope, who grows up to become the Rhode scholar at Georgetown and Yale Law School, Governor of Arkansas, and finally President of the United States. This is a book for the serious political scholar or persons interested in modern day presidential politics.

This is one of the weirdest books I've read in a long time. Written by R. Emmett Tyrrell of American Spectator fame, this has to be one of the most scathing attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton ever written. I gave it five stars because it kept me in open mouthed awe throughout the entire read, as well as illiciting huge belly laughs over some of Tyrrell's word play, which can be truly brilliant. This book isn't a knee to the Clinton groin, it's a shotgun blast to the Clinton groin.

The book starts out with the L.D. Brown story. Brown was a close confidant of Clinton when he was Governor Clinton of Arkansas. Brown, with Clinton's help, attained a job with the CIA. Brown quickly became entangled in the Barry Seal/Mena drug trafficking operation. Brown is an important figure because he can link Clinton into the drug operations. This part of the book is essentially the same account that can be found in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton". If Brown is to be believed, this is a devastating indictment of Bill Clinton and sets the tone for Tyrrell's examination of the Clintons.

The rest of the book traces Bill's ascension to the White House. We get an account of Bill and his education at Oxford and Yale, where he quickly hooked up with what Tyrrell calls the "Coat and Tie Radicals", which are those New Left hippies that smoked dope and engaged in Marxist thought on the weekends, but spent the rest of their time carefully cultivating their public image so as to land good positions in government, law and corporate America. Tyrrell shows that during the time between the 1960's and the 1990's, these Commies never changed their attitudes or beliefs. They simply waited through the Reagan years for their chance to impose their warped values on America. Their beliefs can be summed up in what Tyrrell calls the "kultursmog", a choking mess of touchy-feely and Marxist/Socialist ideas that clouds traditional American values. Tyrrell continues his assault on the Clintons by showing their financial scams, their rabid pursuit of power over everything else, how they are products of the corrupt "Ole Boy" network of Arkansas politics, and how the first year of the Clinton presidency, 1993, was an utter disaster for America. Tyrrell outlines all of the scandals and flubs that made the Clinton presidency the most corrupt and inept administration in American history. Tyrrell also looks at Clinton's childhood, throwing aspersions on Clinton's mother Virginia, who is portrayed as a loose woman without any morals. He also points out that we can't be sure who Clinton's father really is.

A separate chapter offers a treatment of Hillary Clinton and reveals the true colors of our illustrious First Lady. She is exposed as a closet Communist who clerked for a well known Marxist lawyer who defended the Black Panther Party. Hillary also edited a journal at Yale that was extremely hostile to authority figures. One edition depicted police officers as racist pigs who should be killed. Hillary's infamous behavior is also closely detailed. Apparently, our First Lady has a temper problem, and likes to heave objects in fits of volcanic anger.

Tyrrell explodes the Clinton mythos and shows them to be two black holes in power suits. The portrait painted here reveals them to be grasping, petty, manipulative power seekers without a shred of decency. They dragged America through the mud, and the country will forever be stained by the Clinton legacy. And this was written in 1996, well before the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke.

It's important to note that Tyrrell uses an astounding vocabulary throughout the book. Words such as foozle, avuncular, and lumpen predominate. The style is also extremely snide and can get pretty ugly. Tyrrell pulls no punches in this treatise, and liberals will scream bloody murder while reading this, if they can finish it in the first place. It is, without a doubt, a polemic, and should be read accordingly. I have to give it five stars for its sheer audacity. I'll read it again.

I'm sure Mr. Tyrrell would be pleased to know that Steve Kangas not only read the book before his suicidal attempt to assassinate Richard Scaife (no doubt inspired by all the compassion and love of such Clintonistas as Sidney Blumenthal, James Carville, and Larry Flynt), but even gave it a star.