Clintons Party Their Way Through Season--22 Times

If you think holiday entertaining can be a chore, count your blessings this year. At least one couple had it worse than you: President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The White House, of course, insists that the Clintons don’t view their official socializing as a chore at all, and that the couple cherished each moment of this year’s season of holiday entertaining.

All 22 parties. All 10,000 guests.

Starting Dec. 3 and ending Friday, the Clintons entertained guests the way General Motors builds cars--on an assembly line. Virtually every night the White House threw a holiday party with an average of about 450 people in attendance.

On many nights, there were two parties. One would go from 5 to 7 p.m. Then there would be a short break before the next gig--from 8 to 10 p.m. And don’t think the Clintons got off the hook by just dropping by these events. At most of the parties, they stood for two hours continuously, greeting guests in a receiving line, a few seconds for each--just long enough for the White House photographer to snap a picture.

Why do it? For most people, such an ordeal would be the social equivalent of Mao Tse-tung’s Long March. But the Clintons are not like most people, said Neel Lattimore, a spokesman for the first lady.

“I don’t know if there’s any other explanation: They love this time of year,” he said. “They diligently attend each night looking forward to meeting people.”

Etiquette expert Judith Martin, a longtime observer of Washington’s social scene, said this is probably true for a gregarious president such as Clinton, but she discerns an additional motive.

“It’s supposed to soften you up,” Martin said. “People love to go to these parties, and they love to see the White House and tell people back home they were with the president.”

In Martin’s view, White House Christmas parties are an example of her theory that “business entertaining is an oxymoron.” The purpose is to take people with whom you have a business relationship “and confuse them into behaving like your friends.”