It's amazing how much humiliation people will put up with in order to remain in the public and historical eye. "Billory" have a political marriage. Who knows who, or what, either of them have slept with over the years? White House gossip in the first administration said that her lovers were female. I don't really care. I do care that she was on the board of Walmart and defended her corporate law career by saying that it was and is the only game in town. I care that her poIitics are neoliberal and shallow. I look at her hairstyle changes and the publicity operations, of which the book is the latest example, and I shrug. What bothers me is that we are about to hear about the martyrdom of this woman from people who should know better. 

 
I've told this story once before: I watched the 92 elections in a garage in Brooklyn with about 30 other people, one of whom was Pierre Trudeau. A few years before he had hit on the girl who had invited him, who was by then an ex-girlfriend of mine, a tall blond and abrasive Anglo Quebecer. I guess he found something charming about her because after she put him in his place—"Trudeau, you're...old!"—he stayed in touch. She always denied sleeping with him and I believe her. If you knew Louise, so would you. But she liked him. 

When I met him he looked like an old man. He was tired. He'd been a rogue and a playboy. He was probably still a manipulative, self-centered son of a bitch. He was definitely still a high-powered corporate lawyer and maybe still chasing tail, or trying to, at 65. [He was 73] But he was a socialist. He looked genuinely sad when I asked him what he thought of Clinton. He called him a Republican. I said I couldn't do anything but agree. [I said "Yeah"]