Below the Beltway

Jackley's disillusioning experience as press secretary alternately to three Democratic congressmen during the 1980s led to his 1992 bestseller Hill Rat: Blowing the Lid Off Congress. Now he's back with a scathing, funny, breezy, irreverent dismemberment of the Clinton administration, which he views as elitist and arrogant. Characterizing President Clinton as a scam artist who temporarily convinced us he was one of us, Jackley sees both Republicans and Democrats as members of a ""Permanent Political Class,"" beholden to special interests and evincing thinly veiled contempt for ordinary working people. He heaps scorn on Hillary Rodham Clinton, details political action committee payoffs, retails Washington sexual gossip and amusingly observes the disastrous diary-keeping habits of Senator Bob Packwood and Treasury official Josh Steiner. By this account, the latter's diary revealed that Clinton wanted tight political control over the Whitewater investigation. For good measure, he skewers ivory-tower political scientists, surfs the Internet to gauge its growing influence as a political forum and reveals his participation in an abortive sting operation (launched by TV's Inside Edition) to nab congressmen taking bribes. (July)