Today is the official publication date of the embargoed book about Hillary Clinton being touted by conservatives as “a work so damning it could destroy any possible bid for the presidency,” as an Associated Press wire story by Marc Humbert reports. Published by Penguin‘s recently launched conservative imprint, Sentinel, The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President, written by former New York Times editor Edward Klein, “portrays the New York senator as a ruthless and ambitious woman who would stop at nothing to protect her husband’s presidency and promote a Clinton II administration headed by her.” Klein tells the AP, “I think she would be, in the White House, a Nixonian president and a danger to the republic,” and as Humbert notes, the book is getting huge support by conservative groups — even to the point of being touted by a rival publisher, the Swift Boat Veterans‘ originator Regnery Publishing in its Conservative Book Club. And NewsMax.com, the conservative website backed by arch-conservate Richard Mellon Scaife, is offering free copies of Klein’s book to new subscribers. A report at MediaMatters.org, however, documents ” errors and distortions” in the book, while also noting that Al Franken, who is also published by a Penguin imprint (Dutton), attacked his publisher on his Air America Radio program. “This is a shameful thing,” said Franken. ” . . . this is the Pearson group [Penguin Putnam’s parent company], which is a multi-billion-dollar organization out of England. And, on their website, it says, ‘Our values: In everything we do, we aspire to be brave, imaginative and decent.’ Well, this is not a decent book.” Also on Media Matters: an open letter from David Brock to Penguin head Susan Peterson Kennedy, asking for “a public explanation of what, if any, editorial standards and fact-checking processes the Penguin Group applies to its imprints.” Brock details numerous factual errors by Klein and also decries repeated instances of “gay-baiting innuendo.” Brock tells Peterson Kennedy, “I can assure you that if this matter is not redressed satisfactorily, Penguin’s actions won’t be forgotten as progressives shop for books.” Meanwhile, despite the embargo on the book, Publishers Weekly editor-in-chief Sara Nelson published a review of the book yesterday. In a withering critique, Nelson says, “What ‘news’ [Klein] turns up is too minor to make even Entertainment Tonight: the former First Lady drinks decaffeinated coffee, likes to sleep late in the morning (unlike her early-riser husband), and is self conscious about her thick legs. . . .Klein seems intent on rehashing the rehash in this too-boring-to-even-be-execrable title.” She calls the book ” superficial, clichéd, and gender obsessed.”