In another time and place, in a universe far, far away, I actually covered Hollywood.

For many years I interviewed celebrities, rubbed shoulders with studio execs, screened virtually every movie made and, single-handedly, at that time exposed the political and moral shenanigans of the entertainment industry heavyweights.

It's been more than 15 years since I moved on and broadened my journalistic areas of interest. But I still didn't think anyone could tell me anything about the staggering, breath-taking hypocrisy of the glitterati set.

That was until I read Peter Schweizer's latest book, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy." This is not, exclusively, a book about Hollywood activists. Schweizer, the talented biographer of Ronald Reagan ("Reagan's War") and George W. Bush ("The Bushes"), focuses on 11 left-wing icons, including Michael Moore, Al Franken and Barbra Streisand, but also including, Noam Chomsky, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Nader, Nancy Pelosi, George Soros, Gloria Steinem and Cornel West.

It's a representative selection of the leading intellectual and celebrity lights of modern liberalism.

It's also a shocking expose of hypocrisy beyond anything I remembered from my days covering the politics of Hollywood.

Some of it will make you laugh. Some of it will make you angry. Some of it will just leave you scratching your head in bewilderment.

How do these people get away with saying one thing and doing the complete opposite? How is it that we have not heard about these front-page newsworthy examples of public-relations fraud? What does it say about the ideas these people hold sacred?

Schweizer leaves no stone unturned. This serious biographer has produced what reads like, looks like and feels like a well-documented, fully annotated, double-sourced version of the National Enquirer. It's sensational – not because Schweizer is making it up, but because he's not.

Claim: Michael Moore says he doesn't own a single share of stock.

Fact: He owns tens of thousands of shares, including stock in companies he regularly rips as capitalist thieves and robber barons.

Claim: Noam Chomsky calls the U.S. military the most evil force on the face of the earth.

Fact: The Pentagon has provided him with a comfortable living for many years through Defense Department grants.

Claim: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi proclaims her support for unions and environmentalism.

Fact: The luxury resort, the vineyard and the restaurants she partly owns are strictly non-union and the exclusive country club she partly owns failed to comply with existing environmental regulations for the past eight years – including a failure to protect endangered species.

Claim: Barbra Streisand denounced global warming and the rape of the environment.

Fact: She drives an SUV, lives in a mansion and has a $22,000 annual water bill. In the past, she has driven to appointments in Beverly Hills in a motor home because of her aversion to using public bathrooms.

Claim: Ralph Nader is a citizen avenger – a populist uninterested in wealth and materialism.

Fact: He pretends to live in a modest apartment. In fact, he lives in fancy homes registered in the names of his siblings.

The list goes on and on – one astonishing page after another.

Your heart races, your blood pressure rises, your stomach hurts from laughing so hard and because of the sinking feeling that these people are ripping you off.

It's one entertaining and enlightening book.

And there's a bigger lesson here than embarrassing a few elitists who don't think the rules they want to impose on the rest of us apply to them.

If they can't live within those rules, or choose not to, doesn't that strongly suggest their ideas are not worth the hot air that comes out of their mouths?

Purchase Peter Schweizer's "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy"