Michael Moore has raised the bar sky-high. Any political documentary released since "Fahrenheit 9/11" is automatically compared to his incendiary (and generally brilliant) film about President Bush -- in tone, in content, in style, in sheer audacity.

		'The Hunting of the President' Rating: Unrated, but PG-13 in nature. Narrator: Morgan Freeman. Directors: Harry Thomason, Nickolas Perry.

So, it's hard for other documentary makers to measure up, even when the topic is "The Hunting of the President," subtitled "The 10-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill Clinton."

As with "Fahrenheit," it has a laser-guided point of view and it makes a strong case that most Clinton accusers were vindictive, motivated by money or opportunity, unethical, not very bright (some especially unflattering footage of Paula Jones turns up), predisposed to dislike Bill and Hillary Clinton from their days in Arkansas and indifferent to the little people ruined along the way. All politics are local, in the sense that grudges and grievances nursed in Arkansas were played out on a national stage.

The 89-minute documentary, opening at the Harris Theater, is based on the book of the same title and counts Clinton pal Harry Thomason ("Designing Women") as co-writer and co-director. He borrows theatrical techniques -- music that implies sinister business is afoot, chapter titles, the tapping out of dates and places onto the screen -- that make it seem like a political thriller.

Through interviews and archival footage, the filmmakers serve us villains, including former Independent Counsel Ken Starr and billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife (owner/publisher of the Tribune-Review), and victims, such as Susan McDougal. She was involved in the Whitewater land deal, refused to cooperate with Starr and ended up in prison.

The right-wing cabal -- and a crime reporter uses that very phrase -- isn't the only group skewered here. The media take their hits, too. Reporters afraid of missing another Watergate jumped on Whitewater, sometimes slipping and using the 1970s shorthand for scandal when they meant the real-estate deal.

Howard Kurtz, media reporter for The Washington Post, talks about how the "two-source rule" became the no-source rule on Clinton stories. A bit of information that was simply out there, on a Web site, in some magazine, or in the ether, ended up being reported.

Paul Begala, a co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" whose consulting firm helped to elect Clinton in 1992, derides the creation of a "new media food chain." A story in right-wing publications or overseas would advance to the Drudge Report or American Spectator, slide into the New York Times and onto the floor of the U.S. Senate. After the Monica Lewinsky affair, Begala "didn't give a rip snort" what happened to Clinton, but he considered the impeachment proceedings a right-wing attempt at a coup d'etat.

Clinton's sexual indiscretions are treated too lightly in "The Hunting," and Thomason sometimes uses silly bits of movie or other footage as humorous segues. "The Hunting" is as much of an op-ed piece as "Fahrenheit" and, like it, probably will preach to the choir.

In the end, it's the man who gave the world "It's the economy, stupid" who sums up the hunt. "Many of us have done stupid things in our lives," says James Carville, another former top Clinton aide. "None of us have had $80 million spent by thousands of investigators to try to see what all these stupid things were."

But with another presidential election two months away and the inability of the country to put the Vietnam War to rest, it all ends up seeming surprisingly irrelevant.