Entry 2:

Dear Sarah and Marjorie,

As you both know by now, Hillary Clinton is now the senator-elect from my state, New York, having kicked the butt of the Republican candidate, Rick Lazio. Lazio's principal campaign message seemed to be, "I'm cute and you're not, so make me your senator.'' But cuteness did not hold up in the apple groves and depressed communities in the forested, mountainous north of this state. Nor did it wash on the funky Lower East Side of New York City, home of Jacob Riis and all those cart-pushing immigrants at the start of this century--and all those runaway suburban kids stumbling around drugged up in purple hair. Hillary, by contrast, did enormously well all over the state, even in the apple groves and far-flung counties like Erie that are typically anathemas to Democrats. She did this, Clinton-style, by pressing a great deal of flesh. By restraining her true, razor-sharp self. And with a pure, hard-edged intelligence that took a while to come on track. But once it did, her intellect made Lazio's cuteness seem thin indeed. In 10 years as an editorial writer at the Times, I have experienced endorsement interviews with many, many candidates, presidential and otherwise. Hillary's close-out interview in this last election was by far the most impressive I've ever sat through. A razor-sharp mind, layered over with a phenomenal degree of self-control. Her personality is modulated, smooth to the touch. Random bursts of emotion almost never break the surface. This in contrast to Bill, who emotes (sheds tears even) at every possible opportunity.

Just as you say, Sarah, it is intended to portray Hillary (in all of her many hairstyles) as a smiling, White House version of June Cleaver. Remember June in Leave It to Beaver, the suburban sitcom from the early 1960s that still runs on cable? Handsome Ward Cleaver comes home to the suburban ranch house every evening in his white shirt and tie, swings through the door singing, "June, I'm Home!" June is, of course, in the kitchen cooking in high heels, a tasteful black dress, an apron, and that omnipresent string of pearls. This we know was a bogus view of suburbia. Many of the real Junes were going stir-crazy at the end of the cul-de-sac, drinking too much, shtupping the mechanic down at the garage, and smoldering about the tyranny of the suburban domestic ideal. The suburban life was more like Updike's Rabbit novels (wife swapping, drug experiments, diet pills, neurotic teen-agers, divorce) than Leave It to Beaver. But the contrast between the bright, shiny ideal and the grim, loathsome reality is strikingly clear as you read over these glossy pages.

An Invitation to the White House is, well, the Leave It to Beaver version of the Clinton White House. In it, Hillary attempts to beat back grim reality with a warm, domestic account of those days and nights at the Casa Blanca on Pennsylvania Avenue. The grim realities include Monica in that thong, Monica in fellatio, Vince Foster's suicide, Bill groping everything in sight, Travelgate, Web Hubble in jail, and on and on. Hillary dispenses with these in her narrative--and look out, she may never, ever discuss them, even in her final memoirs--focusing instead on decorating, her menu duties, and her parties. You might view this as the standard political deception. But this book--with its doilies and recipes--strikes me as desperately poignant, an attempt to manufacture a record of domestic bliss amid what was clearly a hellish, ongoing nightmare. What you sense is a brainy, angry woman trapped in the ritual of domesticity, partly out of political ends, I suspect, but also out of natural predisposition.

Even brainy, ambitious people deserve domestic peace and tranquility. But the Clintons landed in the biggest, bestest, and coziest house of all, only to see the place go up in flames around them. Hillary's earnest recounting of menus and party duties comes across just as you say, Marjorie: as an attempt to expunge some of the nastiest episodes in White House history. But don't doubt for a minute that Hillary took refuge in all that cooking and decorating and place-card arranging--as a way to put aside (for a few hours at least) the sense that everything she had worked for over the last 30 years was going to hell in a hand basket around her. Imagine what it must be like to live with a guy like that ... to have made up your mind to continue on with him till Death Do You Part. Having cast your lot as such, you would take good moments where you could find them--make yourself feel them as deeply as you possibly could. Unable to flee, you might opt to deceive yourself, as did June in the cul-de-sac.

No one would reasonably expect Hillary to take account of White House horrors in a coffee table book. But the horrors that are missing from these pages just jump out at you, making themselves felt through absence. Was this the room (or perhaps the very sitting chair) where Vince Foster made the decision to blow himself away? Who said what to Vince in those last, fateful hours? Was this the little hallway where ramblin' Bill caught a glimpse of young Monica and succumbed to the Dreaded Thong? Is Bill thinking in any of these pictures: "Man, I can't wait to get back to the phone to call my li'l gal?"

The election eve scene in New York City was quite something. Hillary seemed actually to duck Bill on stage, hugging all the pols instead. She mentioned him last, using him as a prop for the event, or so it seemed. My, how angry must she be. How terrible must it be to feel sold out and betrayed by your life partner, with no real way to vent it?

This book says a lot about race as well. Note the black people in all these pictures. Vernon Jordan, the big fixer. Ron Brown, soon to be killed in a plane downed in Europe. But nine-tenths of the black people in these pictures are either butlers who stand and serve or entertainers flown in to do a buck and wing. Clinton benefited enormously from the black vote and from the sense that he understood black people. But the Clinton inner circle (other than Jordan) was white, white indeed. Check out that portrait of Hillary's senior staff, on Page 3. The black White House staff was largely marginalized to insignificant political operations and were trotted out to quiet down the occasional Negro's uprising. But for the most part, they were not in the room when anything of significance was being discussed. They complained bitterly about this throughout the two administrations. Look at these pictures--with the black folks cast as butlers and entertainers--and you get their drift.