Posted 9:41 AM by Blah blah

Why Hillary Fascinates Bill Clinton (Relationships)

Great column by Tina Brown, The bookworm and the Viking (Salon.com). Hillary's newly published autobiography, Living History, broke records by selling 200,000 copies Monday. She was paid an $8 million advance for it. Tina Brown used to be the editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines. She's the chair of Miramax's Talk Media division.

"Sometimes in a relationship the first formative insecurities fuse into an indelible imprint and become the DNA of a marriage. Hillary may be a power blonde now but she will always be secretly thrilled that anyone as gorgeous as Bill chose her....Bill had already been a Rhodes scholar and would rise to the presidency, but he will never stop being in awe that an alpha woman like Hillary chose him. When she got up to speak at a dinner hosted by the former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke two years ago in New York the president watched her with mesmerized, possessive pride. Their marriage has been an ongoing drama of mutual conquest.

In the book Hillary admits that planning her campaign with Bill for the New York Senate race salved the marriage wounds after Monica Lewinsky. Politics has always revived the erotic charge. It's not her fault that Clinton remains a Hot Springs recidivist. Over breakfast his wife may be the most stimulating sparring partner in the world as she cuts up his grapefruit and argues about healthcare (as she told Talk magazine in 1999). But some nights the saxophone wails and Bill's psyche heads to the trashiest trailer park it can find.

Sexual snobs from the Kennedy era always marveled at the 42nd president's terrible taste in women -- big-haired Gennifer Flowers, skanky Paula Jones, pillowy Monica Lewinsky. But terrible taste is the point. Has Clinton ever been linked to a woman who could remotely threaten Hillary? Washington was full of attractive, Harvard-educated, safely married policy babes who would have been far less embarrassing -- but to Hillary far more dangerous -- diversions. Blue dress or no blue dress, the irony is that if Bill had been arguing deep into the night with Monica about NAFTA, Hillary might have divorced him a long time ago."