The current New Yorker editor, David Remnick, penned that magazine's lead "Talk of the Town" piece on Klein's book. The headline, "Political Pornography," perfectly described his take on it.

IN THE CROSSFIRE—Klein dubiously asserts that the public has a right to know about Hillary's sex life. His evidence that she's a lesbian includes his assertion that she did not shave her legs or armpits while attending Wellesley College. Wellesley public affairs spokespeople told me they hadn't read the book, had no real plans to read it, and had no comment on its charges.

Such anti-gay innuendo raised the ire of David Brock, who heads the Media Matters in America website and who happens to be gay. Brock wrote: "Mr. Klein introduces Nancy Pietrafesa, whose name he misspells throughout, as someone 'rumored to be Hillary's lesbian lover.'" Ms. Pietrafesa, a nonpublic figure, has been perturbed to find herself thus described in the book. An attorney for her told the New York Post: 'These allegations are totally false and unsubstantiated. Klein has apparently done no investigating. This is scurrilous, despicable and politically motivated."

The Syracuse Post-Standard quoted Ms. Pietrafesa, who has been married for 35 years and is the mother of three sons, as saying: "This could hurt my family. This could be an insidious, totally destructive thing in a family. Having that even as a question about my love and loyalty to my husband is very hard, and very sad." Ms. Pietrafesa told the New York Post: "No one deserves this kind of crap."

The Media Matters website offers a 33-page critique of Klein's text.

As The Economist opines: "Mrs. Clinton has long owed a big debt to her critics on the deranged right and it is clear that her luck still holds. . . . Mr. Klein has succeeded in doing the near-impossible: he has written a book that will make all but fire-breathing conservatives sympathetic to her cause."

Probably the most damning criticism came from the Los Angeles Times media columnist Tim Rutton. He wrote: "Every once in a while, something hits your desk and makes you wonder whether there really isn't an argument to be made for book burning."

The only positive review I read in a credible source was in the National Review, which called the Klein book "a good beach read"—kudos normally awarded to fiction. In this case it was appropriate, given the made-up dialogue that is Klein's M.O. and the rumors portrayed as fact.

FACT VERSUS FICTION—John F. Harris, who covered the Clintons for the Washington Post, recently published a well-reviewed book called The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (Random House, 2005).

Harris is well qualified to judge the merits of Klein's work, and in the New York Observer he wrote: "Of course this book isn't on the level. Presumably, neither Mr. Klein nor his publisher cares whether what he writes is true or makes sense. In fact, one has no idea what to believe about any aspect of this publishing event. Sentinel claims it has printed 350,000 copies, and that it moved up its planned publication by three months in order to satisfy public demand. Who knows? Other publishers widely suspect that both statements are baloney."

Let's look at this text and examine what is behind the hoopla. Clearly the book is pandering to those who have strong negative feelings about Hillary. It was rushed into print without proper fact-checking, resulting in sloppy scholarship not corrected by the checks and balances that a more reputable and honest publisher such as Knopf, Norton, or Farrar, Strauss and Giroux would require.

Klein's book contains misleading footnotes, some 70 of which list anonymous sources that convey a false sense of scholarship. The book itself is printed in large type on thick paper, in short paragraphs, and in 44 chapters on 254 pages of text, all of which have been designed to give the book the look of heft. The result is more the appearance of a book than an actual book.

According to Vanity Fair, Klein began the book "shortly after the presidential debates," meaning sometime in October 2004. Given the publishing industry's requirements of lead time and the book's mid-June publication, Klein had, at most, six months to research and write the text, have it edited, proofread and vetted by Penguin's legal department.

We professional biographers often rail about the need for more time and money to get to know our subjects in sufficient depth, and revere quality projects like Robert Caro's 25-year-long study of Lyndon Johnson. It has so far yielded three volumes but hasn't yet gotten to Johnson's presidency.

Klein simply didn't have the time—or take the time—to produce anything that was more than a glimpse of Senator Clinton, and he chose to spend much of the time he had peeking into her bedroom. Why?

I asked Michael Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and an editor at the Washington Post Book World why he thought a publishing house as prestigious as Penguin would stoop to such bottom-feeding?