An $8 Million Face Lift

An $8 Million Face Lift
The problem isn't Hillary's book deal. It's Hillary's book.
BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Thursday, December 21, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST

Whatever the ethics of cashing in on the White House, it's hardly the potential for a payoff that's the main problem with Hillary Clinton taking a reported $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for her first lady memoirs.

As the empowered made-over world-famous senator-elect wife of Bill the president, Mrs. Clinton has achieved an orbit from which it is highly unlikely--especially in the glare of such publicity--that she would stoop to graft in the guise of a book deal. Never mind her history of quietly raking in $100,000 in improbably high profits on those still-unexplained futures contracts. These days Mrs. Clinton enjoys access to funding on a scale that dwarfs any of her shadier old ventures.

No, the biggest problem with the price tag for Hillary's version of her White House years is that it suggests she and her publishers have reason to expect a huge audience out there, waiting to buy yet more of the fantasy life that is the hallmark of Clinton politics--whether it's Bill or Hillary who's doing the talking.

A busy dream world it is. Welcome back to the cosmos in which no one covered up sleazy business dealings in Arkansas. No one ever had sex with "that woman"--until a prosecutor proved it. Certainly no one enjoyed any special advantage in using the White House as a staging ground for a Senate race run mainly on the strength of celebrity by association with America's most honored institution. Does anyone--including Hillary herself--really believe that without the glitter, escort and clout conferred simply by residing as Mrs. President in the White House, Hillary--running as plain old Hillary--could have won a Senate seat from New York?

Were the Clinton family saga just a season of TV's "The West Wing," this would all be fine. In the imagination of a large share of the American public, the Clintons have become stand-ins for a sort of intriguing royal family: draped with privilege, dipped in intrigue and set majestically apart from moral standards we might ask of our neighbors. Already we are hearing the lamentations that once they decamp from the White House, tuning in to the George W. Bush presidency won't be half as entertaining.

Fantasy, including soap opera, has its place among the amusements of any society. But the Clintons are not a set of TV characters, nor are they confined to the climes of pulp fiction or the bathos of country song lyrics. They spend real tax money, lower real standards and seek to alter real rules. Bill's presidential style left its smear all over the ruinous tactics of the recent election. Hillary, even before starting her job as a senator, has begun by calling for an end to the Electoral College--meaning that one of her humble notions right out of the starting box is to meddle with the U.S. Constitution.

Mrs. Clinton's memoirs, when they appear, will be another chance for her to feed the fantasy. And the plans for her memoirs are, by publishing standards, huge, commanding a price tag outstripped only by the personal story of the pope. For Simon & Schuster to break even, says a source in the book industry, Mrs. Clinton's story of herself would have to sell upward of half a million copies in hardcover. Plus, this is a contract for world rights, with sales projected in a host of other countries, not to mention audio, paperback and serial rights.

So, what is this $8 million message that Hillary plans to deliver, packaged as a window on her private life?

For a preview, there's her latest book, just out, "An Invitation to the White House: At Home With History." Edged in gold, showing a happy Hillary, necklaced in gold, on the cover, this lavish coffee-table book is billed by Mrs. Clinton as a chance to show off the considerable glories and rich past of the White House. But its main effect is to showcase Hillary herself. Or, rather, a sort of hologram Hillary, the kind of class act America might have wished for instead of the henchwoman we got. This book is all about feeding the fantasy: 312 pages of Hillary at home, wearing ball gowns, throwing costume parties, picking out carpets, chatting with foreign heads of state, enjoying those tender, private moments with Bill--captured by a handy photographer who just happened to be hovering nearby.

Airbrushed out, in the manner of awkward truths erased from old Soviet or current Chinese histories, is anything that might disturb the revamping of the image. In all the lauding of the permanent staff and chit-chat about the historic rooms, there is no mention of the Travel Office staff she hounded from their jobs, the bizarre uses Bill made of the Oval Office, the teas and coffees with highly questionable donors. There is simply a perfect couple sharing the perfect presidency, rounded out--from the woman who once said she wouldn't be reduced to baking cookies--with a collection of White House recipes.

I'd expect Mrs. Clinton's memoirs, when they appear, will bear the same stamp. Sure, we will probably get passages describing anguish over Bill and Monica and assorted lists of doubts and fears--choreographed to touch the public heart but gloss over the sordid nature of it all. Expect the strained smile of a face lift. If history is any guide, Mrs. Clinton has just procured herself yet another chance to rewrite history. And the public, eager to believe fantasies more attractive than the reality, is probably going to shell out and buy in. It might all be a little less bothersome, were Mrs. Clinton's tales to be touted from the start not as history, or memoirs, but as fiction.

Ms. Rosett is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. Her column appears Thursdays on OpinionJournal.com and in The Wall Street Journal Europe as "Letter From America."