Steve Hayward writes the best review of the books that Hillary and Sid Bluementhal have offered the unwashed and ill-read public (I tried reading both, and couldn’t; I just can’t afford the booze it would take). Hayward explains his method in the first two paragraphs: "Years ago I developed a standardized measurement for the agony involved in reading and reviewing tendentious books. I call it the ’Donaldson Scale,’ after Sam Donaldson of ABC News, whose book I once had to suffer. ’One Donaldson’ means that a full bottle of scotch or its equivalent is necessary to grind out a review.

Hitherto few books have rated more than a Half-Donaldson, though the occasional effort of a French literary critic, or any John Irving novel, comes close to rating a Full-Donaldson. The memoirs of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sidney Blumenthal have shattered the Donaldson Scale. To paraphrase one of Hillary’s previous offerings, these books take a whole distillery."