Mitch McConnell has plunged the knife into Harry Reid in a scorching tell-all in which he labels the Democratic Senate Minority Leader as a "bombastic" politician who spouts "nasty" lies.
Politico reports that "
The Long Game: A Memoir," which hits bookstores on May 31, the Republican Senate Majority Leader slashes away at Reid in an incredibly unflattering rant.
"Harry is rhetorically challenged. If a scalpel will work, he picks up a meat ax. He also has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality," McConnell writes, according to Politico.
"In person, Harry is thoughtful, friendly, and funny. But as soon as the cameras turn on or he's offered a microphone, he becomes bombastic and unreasonable."
Reid will then start "spouting things that are both nasty and often untrue, forcing him to then later apologize," McConnell says.
McConnell cites one example of Reid's erratic behavior he claims occurred in 2005.
"[Reid had] called then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan a political hack and later decided to enlighten a group of sixty students by calling President Bush a loser during a speaking engagement at their high school," McConnell writes.
"This lack of restraint goes against what is expected from a party leader, and I was skeptical, at best, about the direction of the Senate under his leadership."
A press release for the book, published by Sentinel, describes McConnell as "a hard-charging Kentucky politician" who was once referred to by President Ronald Reagan, whose endorsement he sought, mistakenly as "my good friend Mitch O'Donnell."
The book also reveals McConnell's battle with polio and how his mother helped him recover by "leading him through long, aching exercises every day for two years."
His father, according to the book's publisher, taught him the importance of standing up to bullies, "even if it meant taking the occasional punch. It turned out to be the perfect childhood for a future Senate majority leader."
McConnell writes: "In the line of work I would choose, compromise is key, but I'd come to find that certain times required me to invoke the fighting spirit both of my parents instilled in me."
The publisher says McConnell "reveals what he really thinks about the rivalry between the Senate and the House; the players and the stakes involved when a group of political opportunists tried to hijack the Tea Party movement; and key figures such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Harry Reid."
"In the end, the goal isn't a perfectly running congressional machine or a party without blemish or inner turmoil," McConnell writes.
"The goal is to allow the country to work out its differences freely and energetically, confident that the institutions the Founders left us are capable of accommodating the disputes and disagreements that arise in a nation as big and diverse and open as ours."
Advance reviews from conservatives and political scholars who've read the memoir are positive:
"Mitch McConnell's absorbing memoir arrives at a moment when the nation needs and deserves what his book provides — a mature defense of the political profession by one of its best practitioners," George Will wrote.
Charles Krauthammer said: "From Alabama country boy bedridden for two years with polio to Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate is a remarkable journey. Mitch McConnell tells this quintessentially American story with lucid prose and refreshing candor."
And acclaimed presidential historian and biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin said: "[It's] a warm, candid, and captivating story of a young boy who conquered polio, loved the Brooklyn Dodgers, and set his sights on becoming a ballplayer before finding his life's calling in politics."
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