Should Kelin have put it in a book? That's a judgment call. Should I read the book? Not on your nelly! That's a judgment call too.

There is certainly something fishy about this book by Edward Klein. The timing is absolutely perfect - for Hillary's presidential campaign. The charges are so outrageous and impossible to verify, that no one can believe them

Klein said, "My source never said Bill raped Hillary." He added that the supposed "source" thought that Bill Clinton had made the comment, "I'm going to go back to my cottage and rape my wife," as a "joke" and in "jest." But in a later TV interview with Hannity on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Klein backed off the story entirely, saying, "Nor do I suggest for a second that he [sic] was raped."

The Media Matters drone who wrote this makes Klein's comments out to be contradictory, but I'm having a hard time seeing how.

The first statement is that the source (which the MM writer couldn't pass up a chance to imply doesn't even exist) never actually said Bill ever raped Hillary. The second statement is that the source thought Bill said what he's alleged to have said as a joke. The third statement is that, like his source, Klein doesn't believe there was an actual rape.

The MM writer seems to be equating the claim that Bill said something about rape to the claim that a rape actually occurred. Now, maybe if I were to read the book (please, God, no) I might find that it does claim that a rape occurred. But there's no quote from the book here to compare with Klein's answers -- only an apparent assumption that the book actually accuses Bill of raping Hillary.

I'm getting the idea this "rape smear" is every bit as much hype to denigrate the book as anything that was said/written earlier to promote it. All any of it is going to accomplish is to sell more copies.

Is that what Media Matters wants?

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway spotlights an incredibly inept interview Edward 'Hack Job' Klein had with Sean Hannity regarding his new smear-all on Hillary, in which he backs off, then reinforces, then disavows, then...well, just read it for yo...

There is no escaping Ed Klein's much-buzzed-about book on Hillary Clinton. It's being sold at my local Safeway grocery story, for Pete's sake, at the checkout aisle, atop the Altoids and Reese's Peanut Butter sticks. I have neither the time...