Suffice it to say that no right-winger wrote a major book talking about killing Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

--National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, alluding to Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint

LUCKY BASTARD

By Charles McCarry Random House; 385 pages; $24.95

Charles McCarry's undisguised novelistic smear of President Clinton, "Lucky Bastard," is about as appealing as a Vanity Fair photo essay of Linda Tripp. And about as subtle as Ken Starr....

...the only laugh in the book comes near the end, when the Susan McDougal character tries to assassinate the Bill Clinton character with a poisoned suppository.

McCarry, who has co-authored two books with Alexander Haig, is clearly no friend to Democrats....

--San Francisco Chronicle book review by Dan Froomkin published 8/23/98 (UPDATE: Link dead -- try this.)

Funny -- I don't recall a whole lot of appalled harrumphing when that book was published.

(Ponnuru quote via Alicublog.)