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T A B L E__T A L K

Does the Economist kick other weekly newsmagazines' butts? Weigh in, in the Media area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Hollywoodland
By Catherine Seipp
And the loser is ...
(03/06/98)

A bad week for the First Amendment
By Eric Alterman
Can a reporter write a book about a subject he covers?
(03/05/98)

Under the Covers
By James Poniewozik
Money magazines, reflecting our schizoid attitudes toward loot, wobble between safe 'n' sober advice and get-rich-quick fantasies
(03/04/98)

Memoirs of a shy pornographer
By Molly Weatherfield
A pornographer is taken aback when a reader takes her fantasies seriously
(03/03/98)

How to succeed in everything by dropping out of Harvard
By Shoshana Berger
Matt Damon is the latest in the long line of Crimson quitters to make it big
(03/02/98)

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BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVES

the (not so) mighty Quinn

BY HARRY JAFFE | The media magpies have been picking at the open wounds of the Clinton-Lewinsky debacle for more than a month now, cackling across the airwaves, each with his or her own portfolio.

We have George Will, the prissy, pink-faced conservative, his bow tie quivering on his neck as he sputters about President Clinton's moral fitness. We have Clinton apologist James Carville, the Louisiana homeboy looking as if he'd just been beamed down from Mars. We have Matt Drudge, the wacky Internet gossip monger whose right-wing venom drips from the corner of his twisted mouth.

And then we have Sally Quinn, the self-appointed arbiter of Washington's social scene. Since the White House scandal story broke in mid-January, Quinn has gabbed on the networks and cable channels, passing judgment on the president and hissing at first lady Hillary Rodman Clinton.

"If you consider the life of Bill Clinton," she said on "60 Minutes," "whenever he leaves the White House, he's going to get on a plane, and where is he going to go?"

"What do you mean?" a baffled Mike Wallace asked.

"Well, he -- he doesn't even have a home," she sniffed. "I mean, when you think about it, he's homeless. I mean, they've lived in sort of government properties all their lives."

What Quinn really means is that from her elitist perch, President Clinton is poor white trash -- a homeless, rootless Bubba. No doubt this helps explains why he goes for women with big hair, and it allows Quinn to convince herself that he and Monica did unspeakable things in the Oval Office, even though there is as yet no proof.

But Quinn reveals her truly witchy ways when she talks about the first lady. She paints Hillary Clinton as a sad case, trapped in a lousy marriage, "floundering around in the last couple of years to try to find some project for herself."

Actually, it could be said that Sally Quinn has been floundering around for the last couple of decades, when she failed first as a journalist, then as a novelist, before emerging as a hostess in a Washington society that even she admits is in its death throes. Which brings us to a central question: Who appointed Quinn as the mouthpiece for the permanent Washington establishment, if there is such an animal? A peek into Quinn's motives reveals a hidden political agenda and the venom of a hostess scorned, and ultimately, an aging semi-journalist propped up by a cadre of media buddies, carping at the Clintons because they wouldn't kiss her ring.

Quinn, the daughter of a general, was raised in high military society. As she describes in her book "The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining," she was first patted on the bottom at a Washington cocktail party by a randy Sen. Strom Thurmond when she was 17. From young socialite she moved on to dabbling in journalism, writing party stories for the Washington Post in the 1960s. She was a disaster at television and wrote a book about the debacle. But, failing upwards, she was about to be hired by the New York Times when Ben Bradlee, the storied executive editor of the Washington Post, lured her to his new Style section.

At the time Bradlee was married but separated; Quinn was living with journalist Warren Hoge, who would later work for the Times. Quinn and Bradlee became an item, Bradlee's marriage failed, the two were married in 1978 -- and Sally Quinn's career took off.

N E X T+P A G E+| Party reporter