This is a fascinating exploration of the failure of liberalism to stand up against the radical Republican hordes.

It's sub-title at first scared us off: "The New Liberal Meance in America." It sounds like it was published by the radical right wing Regnery Press, which mass-produced all those Clinton attack and slander books.

But actually "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" is quite the opposite. It is a scintillating intellectual journey that explores how liberalism for many politicians and pundits has become associated with expanding U.S. global markets under the theory that "open economic markets" (which is an ideal, not a reality) guarantee democracy and liberty.

So much of the behavior of "liberal politicians" in D.C. can be explained by understanding that they want to complain about the Iraq War, but they don't want to disrupt the economic status quo. (This is also true, the book's author contends, of well-meaning celebrities like Bono. Bono makes us feel better by seemingly raising more money to fight poverty, without changing institutions that perpetuate economic injustice like the World Bank.)

Stephen Marshall, the author of the book and a founder of Guerilla News Network, weaves interviews with "neo-liberals" into his thought-provoking analysis, as he travels the country and the globe.

"Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" is one of those challanging, eye-opening books that makes you step outside of your personal intellectual prism and look at some basic political assumptions anew.

You may not agree with all of Marshall's conclusions, but you finish the book with a new awareness about how liberalism can be contorted to perpetuate a superpower that uses war to advance its economic interests.

The "neo-liberal" poobahs in D.C. wouldn't like "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing," but they probably won't read it anyway.

It's much too insightful for them -- and would make them angry and resentful if they understood it.