It is difficult for me to give this book a poor review, as the author is a personal friend of mine. But to make it an honest review, it will have to be somewhat negative.
Negative first: It is not the worst novel published in the English language, but as far as novels go, it's definitely not a good one. The main characters are college students but talk like old professors. The dialog is horrible and reads like the stiffest of the stiffest English you can imagine. If any college student tried to talk like that in real life, they would probably be either outcast or committed to mental health. It also doesn't seem feasible that even the most talented students would have the kind of deep insights and well thought out opinions of politics and economic policies that the author awards them. I believe that is something that even the most driven people achieve much later in life.
Positive then: the plot is interesting, albeit unrealistic, and is the only thing that kept me reading past the pages and pages of political and economical arguments that slows the story down to a crawl. It is humorous and satirical and the author can be very colorful and imaginative in his descriptions, especially of the parade itself.
But it doesn't make up for it. As a novel, it is burdened with the enormous amounts of argumentative politics which are probably the main reason for writing this book. The author's ideas (and ideals) carry some weight and are well argued and nicely researched (I assume, as there is not a single footnote or bibliography in the book), but it is unfortunate that he chose to deliver these ideas in the form of a fictional novel, which is obviously not where his talent lies. It would have been better to formulate it as an academic project, concentrating on the political message and not get bogged down with characters and dialog, which obviously got second priority in his concentration.
P.S. The Capital Times of Madison, WI made some excellent points about Weingarten's pointless bashing here.

The guy who wrote the Post review seems like a jerk.

Here's the URL of the review that caused all the fuss:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A57528-2003Feb11¬Found=true

I think Burrows' book has all the earmarks of a classic piece of political satire. His depiction of the bumbling, clueless Bush and his single-minded cronies systematically setting about glorifying the accumulation of wealth had me chortling at my desk. Who is Weingarten to decide what the worst novel of all time is? What's the best?

A sampling of initial comments made on the print version:

"Brilliant! I read your book almost at one sitting... I couldn't stop reading. Thanks for your passion and insight." - A faculty member at a Pennsylvania college

"...It is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language." - Gene Weingarten, Washington Post, February 16 2003

"With skill and imagination you have left an indelible impression on the reader on a theme that is basic to the survival of democracy." - Retired Librarian of Northland College

"A truly magnificent achievement!" - Professor Adi Wimmer, American Studies Program, University of Klagenfurt (Austria)