Hillary's Crush on David Miliband, And Other Tall Tales

Sarah Palin may be stealing headlines with the release of her memoir this week, but it was two contrasting stories about the original polarizer, Hillary Clinton, which caught my attention this morning. In a lengthy profile for this month's Vogue, Jonathan Van Meter, includes a short anecdote about Clinton's "favorite new colleague, David Miliband, the tall and dashing 44-year-old British foreign secretary." Here's Meter:

When I mentioned to her over lunch that I had spoken with him, she lit up. "Oh, my God!" I joked that I got a crush over the phone in about five seconds partly because of his accent, and she said, "Well, if you saw him it would be a big crush. I mean, he is so vibrant, vital, attractive, smart. He's really a good guy. And he's so young!"

After shadowing Clinton in Africa and at the U.N., Meter's piece is littered with such stories, humanizing moments that lift Clinton out of the sharp, bitchy caricature that has followed her for so long. At various points he calls her "cheerful", "focused" and "indefatigable" and says one of her biggest assets is that "She plays well with others, especially older Republican men." It's a portrait of the Clinton that women around the world, inspired by her impressive achievements, long to see - a complex, sincere and ultimately caring and likable figure. It's also a stark contrast to Michael Crowley's take on Clinton in this week's New Republic.

Crowley's piece focuses on Clinton's gaffes since becoming Secretary of State - her brusque interaction with Congolese students in August, her abrupt about- face on the issue of Israeli settlements and her description of North Korea as an "unruly teenager" among them. Crowley argues that those who've followed Clinton's career aren't that surprised by her loose lips. Despite her current reputation for message discipline and focus, Crowley says she's long had a tendency to run her mouth. Recall her terrible answer about drivers licenses for illegal immigrants in an early Democratic presidential candidates debate, or her claims about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. Obama, Crowley contends, is probably starting to wish he'd remembered that version of history, not the one where she appears like the smarter, more disciplined half of Team Clinton.

It's almost like Crowley and Van Meter are writing about two entirely different people. That may be because the Vogue scribe isn't part of the Washington media gang, who've had such a tumultuous relationship with Clinton over her 17 years in the national spotlight. Crowley, a veteran political reporter and commentator, casts Hillary in a manner that seems all too familiar to DC reporters who've been slapped around and bullied by Clinton staffers for years. He writes dismissively, cynically even, of her attempts to win over her press corps:

En route to Egypt earlier this month, Hillary Clinton appeared in the press cabin of her plane bearing chocolates for her press corps. Not that she has much love for them: On one seven-day trip earlier this year, she spoke to journalists just once. It's an old Hillary duality--disdain for the media coupled with occasional efforts at outreach. When she campaigned through Iowa as a presidential candidate, she would sometimes appear on her press bus--where she almost never made herself available for questions--to pass out bagels and coffee to reporters.

Van Meter on the other hand, writes glowingly of her candor with the press corps and their growing respect for her, especially when compared to Condi Rice. He recounts her concern for his well being after a bout of food poisoning, sending her own physician down with Cipro and an anti-vomiting drug, and later a staffer with Sprite and white bread to settle his stomach. Perhaps Van Meter sees Clinton without the baggage of being a political reporter. But he sees political reporters, a class to which I belong, in a pretty harsh light. I think these two paragraphs are probably best encapsulate the reason beltway reporters just cannot write about Clinton the way he does:

Not surprisingly, the ten members of the traveling press are both the most fun people on the plane and the crankiest people on the plane. They also drink more, smoke more, eat more. And complain more. And obsess about what Hillary is wearing more. And discuss her good- and bad-hair days more. But most of all, they spin out theories about the imagined dynamics of Hillary's relationships with the two most important men in her life: Bill and Barack.

Our landing in Kenya-the homeland of Barack Obama's father-could not have been more perfectly scripted to drive this group bananas. Just as we are about to touch down after traveling for nearly seventeen hours, everyone's BlackBerrys glow to life, and all at once they are greeted with the news that Bill Clinton is in North Korea meeting with Kim Jong Il, negotiating the release of the two now-famous prisoners Euna Lee and Laura Ling. They are aghast. How could he? He's stealing Hillary's thunder! Obama had to have signed off on this! The timing is atrocious! Right at the beginning of her biggest trip as Secretary of State! Or so it goes in the back of the plane. But in some ways, the press reaction is all that counts, and in their world the upstaging is instantaneous and total.

Both pieces are well worth reading, if for no other reason than to marvel over Clinton's ongoing ability to polarize, inspire, provoke, and, sometimes, charm.