When the first muck-raking hints came out on Drudge about Klein’s smear job on the Clinton’s, I was glad to see so many on the right denounce the book and its methods. But now some big name conservatives are toying with the book again. They are trying to rationalize why an author who attempts to read Hillary’s mind and comes up with nothing but salacious, insulting and personal caricatures of her is of some value still.

The first person to wade into the swamp was Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday afternoon. I listened through all the pathetic sexual details with Klein, and then waited for Sean to challenge him on why these kinds of perverted theories would come off as unseemly. Sean seemed bent on reading each and everyone on the air for some reason. It was not a good move in my opinion.

Then of course Sean had Klein on Hannity & Colmes – which I am glad I missed.

Now Tony Blankely, a person I have deeply respected and admired for a long time, comes out today in his column promoting the book as serious and important!

It was worth my time. This is not a scandal book intended merely to gratify the reader’s salacious interests. Instead, Mr. Klein has written a serious political and psychological biography of the most likely next Democratic nominee for president — and thus, quite plausibly I fear, the next president of the United States.

Look, I listened to Klein on Sean Hannity’s radio show try and explain his approach, and it did not wash. He is trying to read her mind! In doing so he finds all sorts of sexual and marital details that drive her to be who she is. I am not sure whether we are reading ‘Hillary’s Mind’ or ‘Klein’s Mind’ (i.e., his fantasies). Klein basically claims if you dissect all these graphic details it is clear Hillary is a Liberal. Why does anyone need to creep through personal, tawdry ‘facts’ like these to reach that conclusion? We know!

One thing is for sure, some on the right are falling into unsubtantiated, personal rumor mongering while we have issues like social security, Iraq and the Global War on Terror to deal with. It is times like this I remind myself that being an un-aligned independent conservative iss obviously the best choice.

Powerline, who was one of the sites to come out against the initial book tease on Drudge, has a link to John Podhoretz’s negative review. They mention Blankley’s comments briefly. From Podhoretz:

This is one of the most sordid volumes I’ve ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. Sixty pages into it, I wanted to be decontaminated. And 200 pages into it, I wanted someone to drive stakes through my eyes so I wouldn’t have to suffer through another word.

Thanks John, for taking the sword for all of us who now know not to read the thing.

Michelle Malkin agrees, stay away from this book.

Jim Geraghty agrees.