Discuss Hillary With Some and You’ve Just Got to Get Personal

The other night I stayed up past my bedtime to watch Katie and Hillary on TV.

There they were, two perky gals hanging out at the White House, talking about table centerpieces, and movies, and the ever-so-subtle difference between taxes and involuntary payroll deductions, and just what “one of several advisers to the President” means when you are sleeping with the guy (although, they didn’t really get into that ) and, of course, their hair.

And I took it personally. Because I always take Hillary Rodham Clinton personally. Maybe there are one or two women out there who don’t take H.R. Clinton personally, but I have yet to meet them.

The way I look at it, if I grew up privileged and Republican in the Midwest, then went to a women’s college during the ‘60s and found a man who could make me laugh even though he was a Democrat, and he liked the fact that I was smarter than he was, and then we got married and had a daughter and I converted to Southernism but still practiced law outside the governor’s mansion, well, I’d be just like Hillary.

So I can relate.

But Miss Manners would advise that it’s best not to bring up Hillary with people you don’t know too well or you’ll never be invited back. A safer conversation opener might be, “Come on, who really believes all that stuff in the Bible, anyway?” Move on to politics next.

What I’m saying here is that people, women especially, have very strong feelings about The First Lady/First Spouse. She just does something to them, in way that, say, cardboard handsome Al Gore could never pull off.

Can you imagine two women talking about Al’s calves, or his hair (Cristophe obviously doesn’t do him ), or whether or not he bosses the Mrs. around?

But inquiring minds want to know all about Hillary. Then again, what they are willing to believe is something else. People want to box her, sound-bite her, whittle down her dimensions to make her fit a mold.

Only Hillary will be damned if she’ll oblige. And I love her for that.

I have no idea what contribution Hillary will ultimately make to this country, but so far her efforts toward redefining The Total Woman as someone who does not necessarily greet her husband after work dressed in Saran Wrap has earned her a place close to my heart.

Oh, of course, I admire the woman. I think she’s smart and quick, and thoughtful, a good mother, hard-working and you know the rest. But I like her too. If she were selling moisturizer on an infomercial, I would buy.

Which some people close to me do not get.

My mother and I have added Hillary to the list of Topics To Avoid. That’s because I love my mother and every time I am forced to call her nasty names in defense of Hillary, I feel bad.

Plus, my mother will invariably mention something that Rush Limbaugh said just the other day about Hillary and didn’t I think that was funny? That will send me straight over the edge.

(Hey, Oprah. Here’s an idea for a show: Mothers and Daughters Who Have Let Public Policy Issues Come Between Them.)

My sister’s another one. She thinks the woman has some nerve. Uppity, she says; who voted for her ? (Not that my sister voted for the other half of the pair. Whatsisname? Oh, yeah. Dave. I mean, Bill.)

What this is all about, I suppose, is Hillary moved into the White House and decided against playing the ceremonial wife.

Her office is in the West Wing with the other big kids on the block. She told Katie Couric that she’d like her next fun project to be welfare reform. (Now, there’s a job that I bet the regular pols will be standing in line for . . . )

So, clearly, this is a different breed of First Lady than those who have occupied the big house as of late. One imagines that the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt is cheering Hillary on.

Susan Stamberg, the National Public Radio correspondent who’s just published “Talk,” a collection of her radio interviews over the past 20 years, relates an experience with Nancy Reagan that will forever stick in my mind.

Shortly before her husband was elected President, Mrs. Reagan left Susan and her sound engineer waiting for more than an hour out in the Virginia snow, then a staff person ushered them inside to wait some more.

Finally Mrs. Reagan appeared for the interview, and the two journalists stood. But first a silent Nancy walked slowly around the large room and emptied every ashtray that she could find. Then she walked over and shook their hands.

(This would not have happened with Hillary, of course. For starters, H.R. Clinton would have never permitted smoking indoors.)

All First Ladies have power, to lesser and greater degrees, as do most wives. But for many it seems the polite way to execute this power is still with guile. This is supposed to be non-threatening to the male, and real ladies are supposed to be comfortable with that.

Thank goodness Hillary is charting a different way.