It was only natural that the subject of politics would crop up at the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award dinner at Cipriani’s. One of the individuals mentioned as a possible challenger for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat was spotted in the room. I asked the young man seated next to me what he thought of the candidate’s chances.

“No way. Hillary’s a shoo-in and unbeatable,” he said. I pointed out that a book due out in September was being touted as doing to Hillary Clinton what the Swift Boat Veterans did to John Kerry. What makes this book, I told him, so different is that “The Truth About Hillary” is written not by a right-wing conspirator but by a former New York Times magazine editor and Vanity Fair contributor, Edward Klein.

“It doesn’t matter,” my dinner companion said. “Hillary is an article of faith with many New Yorkers. An icon. It doesn’t matter what the book says about her, or if any of the charges are true. She’ll still win.”

Well, the book has been released early, and it’s being trashed by the left and the right as being far beyond the pale.

From the few passages that have been published, it reads like something the incendiary iconoclast Kitty Kelley would write, not a respected journalist that some claim Mr. Klein to be.

The book is so far out there with lurid allegations that I’m beginning to suspect that Mr. Klein is a double agent, pretending to be objective but in reality hoping to drum up visions of a vast right-wing conspiracy to do in poor Mrs. Clinton. Already, headlines have appeared that suggest conservatives are pushing up sales of the Klein book. Warning: The book is more likely to push Hillary Clinton into the White House.

Much as I would like to dispute my dinner companion’s cynicism about the voting habits of New Yorkers, I am perennially baffled by their naive choices – especially regarding the appeal of the former first lady.

Although Hillary Rodham Clinton may inspire what one friend calls “a loathing that requires medication,” I’ve never felt that strongly about anyone. Indeed, I wrote two columns supporting Mrs. Clinton when I felt the press was treating her unfairly. That being said, I do consider her an enigma – which is probably a nice way of saying she’s not who she says she is at any given time.

Every time I thought there was something admirable about the former first lady, she would do a John Kerry flip-flop.

For instance, even though I was a mother who stayed home and baked cookies, I gave Mrs. Clinton high marks for speaking her mind, whether or not it was politically expedient. In a 1992 “60 Minutes” interview she said that she “could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas instead of pursuing a career.”

After being bombarded with charges that she was belittling stay-at-homes – which, of course, she was – the “new” Hillary Clinton popped up at the Democratic convention, all sugar and sweetness and with a recipe for chocolate-chip cookies, no less.

Mr. Klein’s title led me to believe that his book would be pointing out these little hypocrisies, but instead he grovels below the belt – delving into the Clintons’ sex life, which is none of our business.

This book is now propelling Senator Clinton into the same wind pattern that swept her into office to begin with: overwhelming sympathy and pity for the long-suffering wife of a cad. Not a good requisite for the leader of the free world, but neither was it one for the Senate.

In a sense, Hillary Rodham Clinton has already served as president because she was given unprecedented power in the White House. It was, as promised, a true co-presidency.

The health-care fiasco, which she presided over, proved, however, that she was not up to the task. Indeed, people tend to forget that the first two years of the Bill-and-Hillary-Clinton presidency turned out to be a disaster that cost the Democrats their 40-year control in Congress.

Those are the issues that should have been addressed in Mr. Klein’s book.

Instead we’re now in for another soap-opera election.