Greetings From the Lincoln Bedroom

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 17, 1998 | by Julia Gorin

The cafe bookstore crowd may not appreciate Arianna Huffington's analysis of what ails America, but her observations are on the money.

The perfunctory reader might dismiss Arianna Huffington's Greetings From the Lincoln Bedroom (Crown, 275 pp) as a compilation of pointed barbs aimed at the current president and his administration. But this book is smarter than that, and the sharper the reader, the funnier he or she will find this satire on American politics at the end of the 20th century.

The plot is simple: Huffington, the conservative political columnist, art historian and humorist, contributes $50 to the Democratic National Committee as a result of a lost bet with comedian Al Franken; the donation lands her a weekend in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House, putting her in the company of countless other donors, albeit less reluctant and higher-paying.

With Alice's Wonderland as the metaphorical framework for her adventures, our heroine navigates through the White House maze. Speaking through various characters, she plays her own devil's advocate -- a sort of conscience-check on any complacency that might be growing in her own political soul. These conversations boil down to some very substantive political insights that add grounding to the book's bite.

There are dronelike staffers, bubbly interns and presidential buddies who act like a gang of pubescent slobs running wild at a playground. And there is the first lady, a screaming banshee in need of a hefty dose of the latest antidepressant.

Huffington objectifies Al Gore as a statue installed in a corner of the White House basement; elevates White House cat Socks into a shrewd political observer; and reduces the president and other politicos to whining, temperamental toddlers spewing words that often translate into gibberish.

Meanwhile, Hollywood couples such as producers Harry and Linda Thomason speak to a laugh track and sycophants Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen gratefully sweep litter from the White House drive, free of charge.

Huffington relies a lot on intern humor. But that is hardily where her comedy reaches its pinnacle. She is funniest when she puts words into the mouths of the characters whom she's reduced to their most elemental components. Mike McCurry, who has gone from being a darling of the press to a stammering simpleton, suffers a mental breakdown, interrupting a press conference to rabidly deny White House wrongdoing when no one is asking any questions about it.

On the other hand, Huffington's repetitive sex jokes are bland and monotonous: Three of about 100 are funny, one being a reference to the president's "Achilles' penis." She also would have been better served by fewer references to tabloid staples such as Mary Albert and Soon-Yi Previn, whom she mentions in contrived and predictable ways.

Not that the country's current political situation lends itself to subtlety, but the easy stuff doesn't compare to the more subtle humor that Huffington keeps up throughout the story. And when she's on, she's on. This Alice is won over by none of the White House-Washington insiders, except Socks. She places all politicians -- Democrats and clubby Republicans -- in the same corrupt company. No one is safe: Johnny Chung, Rahm Emanuel, Don Fowler, Newt Gingrich, Janet Reno, John Huang, Webster Hubbell, Harold Ickes, Jack Quinn, Dick Morris ... not even "most favored dictator" Jiang Zemin.

GOP partisans might be puzzled by Huffington's choice to portray the speaker as a sloppy monstrosity, but she makes use of the caricature to explain President Clinton's success despite the scandals. The president reveals his secret weapon to Gingrich: It's Gingrich himself.

"You look like such a nasty, bloated bag o' gas that people just assume that whatever you propose is selfish and mean-spirited," Huffington's Clinton tells Huffington's Gingrich. "And then I can do whatever it is you're suggesting in the spirit of bipartisan compromise. You make America feel bad about being selfish; I make America feel good about being selfish."

Huffington also takes jabs at the media, including tycoons Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Gerald Levin. Each one pitches a high-paid TV job to the president. Time Warner's Levin, for example, proposes a show called EverythingGate, which would have Clinton doing investigative reporting on himself as well as discussing the litigation he's currently involved in, plus "the dozens of other scandals that are sure to erupt before you eventually get kicked out of office by the vast rightwing conspiracy."

But Huffington's most creative mm is the personification of bipartisanship as a "make-everyone-happy" monster that tries to consume her with its intoxicating theme. As she reflects: "Bipartisanship was so reasonable, so comfortable.... Individualism was such a chore. It was so easy to go along with the crowd."

Fortunately, she makes a narrow escape from the monster's jowls and is relieved to be back to her unpopular ways of thinking, views that are bolstered by the Great Emancipator himself, who makes a climactic appearance. "Some say politicians now are out of touch," says President Lincoln. "But that's not the problem. They're much too in touch with people's desires. They're out of touch with people's needs."