Politico Playbook does take nasty swipes at people. You just have to know the backstory.

Just hitting the bookshelves today is HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton written by ex-Politico scribes Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. Allen is a former top reporter for Politico, who recently left for Bloomberg. He did not receive the bear hug memo that Jonathan Martin did when he left for the New York Times. Then again, he’s not married to the well-connected Betsy Fischer, senior executive producer and managing editor of political programming for NBC News and former executive producer of NBC “Meet the Press.” As some Washington media insiders know, not everyone leaves the Politico mob and remains friendly with management. Although, John Harris, at the time, told The Mirror, “I wish him well as do others here.” Still, no memo. Parnes, now a White House correspondent for The Hill, meanwhile, was a notorious ass kisser of first lady Michelle Obama when she worked at Politico. See this breathless story about the first lady’s letter opener — it’s just that special to get correspondence from the White House. There was no love lost when she left Politico, either.

In Monday’s Playbook, Mike Allen highlighted the new HRC book by way of ABC Jonathan Karl‘s review in the Wall Street Journal. Between the two men, they largely deduced the book to a love bomb for Hillary Clinton. Karl calls it a “rapturous account.”

The authors are scheduled to appear at Politics & Prose bookshop in Washington on February 24 at 7 p.m.

See the Playbook treatment of the book below. For those who read religiously, this is about as disdainful as Allen gets, although he does point out that Karl calls them “respected.” There’s that consolation prize.

 Note: Yes, this posting bizarrely has two Allen’s and three John’s.