Party Monsters

Many in the political reporting trade doubted Klein ever would have depicted the Clinton insiders as the band of trademark loonies in ''Primary Colors" if he had had to put his name on the book. Klein was bitter about the reaction of his colleagues, saying journalism is a ''sick profession."

Now comes ''Politics Lost," Klein's reminiscences from covering eight presidential campaigns. Though he once tried to swear off this business, ''they don't have 12-step programs for political junkies," he says. If they did, Klein would be a suitable case for treatment.

This is a deeply cynical book. Take, for instance, his description of the two political parties. Democrats have had their spiritual vigor sapped by vehement secularism, their soggy internationalism spineless in the face of a dangerous world. Their liberal wing has an automatic disdain for the use of force, an attitude that is not only weak but also unpatriotic.

The Republicans, who come off a little better, are witlessly radical, fiscally irresponsible at home, intemperate and bullying abroad, and purveyors of an intrusive religiosity that is shockingly intolerant of science or reason.

The cause for this Klein posits as a ''pollster-consultant industrial complex," the addiction of politicians to the synthetic, market-tested language peddled by political consultants leading to a political culture that has become overly cautious, mechanistic, and bland.

What we miss in American politics today is what he calls ''Turnip Day moments," a metaphor drawn from Harry Truman in 1948. In his speech accepting the Democratic nomination on July 26, which he said was Turnip Day in Missouri, Truman announced he was calling the Republican ''do nothing" Congress back into special session. These moments are the intermittent bolts of unmassaged oratory, the spontaneity, the body language that give real insight to those who would lead us.