Never one to be afraid of corporate America, Michael Moore uses his new book Stupid White Men . . . and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation (Regan Books) to tear apart everything he feels is wrong with the current state of the American government.

Moore finished the book in mid-2001 and was all set for release at the beginning of last October. Then came Sept. 11 and Stupid White Men was suddenly deemed "too offensive" to be published due to the new national climate, even though 50,000 copies had already been printed and were sitting in a warehouse.

Moore was told he had to re-write portions of the book, but he refused. After a long struggle, Stupid White Men was released unedited late last month and has since topped the Amazon.com bestseller list.

The filmmaker starts out the book by discussing at great and greatly comic length how our "President" (and he uses the quotation marks every time) hijacked the 2000 election. Not only does Moore use his comedic wit to make the reader laugh at all of the lunacies that he points out, but he also uses increasingly disturbing statistics to paint a picture of a nation in a crisis.

An absolutely hysterical letter to the "President" follows. Moore discusses his ties with the Bush family and then asks W. if he can read, if he's an alcoholic and if he's a felon. The letter is absolutely hysterical and it had this reader nearly dropping the book due to laughter.

The book takes a more serious turn after this though as Moore takes on the economy, racism, sexism, the environment and nearly any other imaginable issue over the next few chapters.

Although Moore still displays his humor throughout these chapters, more and more facts weigh them down. Not to say that facts are bad to have, but in this case they effectively kill much of the humor. Instead of being amusing, these chapters turned this reader into an angry, raging liberal, which of course is exactly what Moore wanted. I found myself sitting at my capitalistic job over spring break, reading this book and seething with outrage over many of the statistics that Moore uses.

Moore also attacks the new Democratic Party in depth, calling Bill Clinton "one of the best Republican presidents we've ever had" and providing a list of conservative Democrats that he feels need to be ousted from office. He implores liberals within the party to fight for a return to the liberal policies that they fought for in their youth and he does it very convincingly.

The book switches pace again near the end as Moore closes with a very funny prayer for the people of the United States and the story of how he met Jeb Bush just days before the 2000 election. The prayer just may be the highlight of the book as Moore asks for God (or whomever you may worship) to let the air out of Bill O'Reilly, cause a plague of locusts to nest in Trent Lott's toupee and make the leaders of Bob Jones University black among many other wishes.

The ending serves as a good way to both make his audience laugh again and at the same time energize them to do something about the state of the country. This book certainly is not for everyone, especially those on the moderate and conservative parts of the political spectrum. If you consider yourself liberal though and if you've heard enough from the right, this book should hit the spot.