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R E C E N T L Y

Secret America
By Steve Erickson
When Thomas Jefferson declared we had the right to "life," he meant one immune from the prying eyes of the media and the state
(12/09/98)

Liberté, Egalité, Versace!
By James Poniewozik
The new fashion media focuses on the frocks populi.
(12/08/98)

Ahoy, mates!
By Susan Lehman
Warring contributors to the Nation magazine bravely set sail together on a Caribbean cruise
(12/04/98)

Game over
By James Poniewozik
Keith Olbermann is bemused as hell and he's not going to take it anymore
(12/01/98)

Democracy on life support
By Steve Erickson
The cynical Starr hearings were to their Watergate precursors as Jack Kevorkian is to Mother Teresa
(11/25/98)

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The strange liberation of Michael Huffington, Us goes weekly, all the Remnick that's fit to print and other tales of media madness

BY SUSAN LEHMAN | For a good read and a terrifying insight into what made at least one recent American politician run, check out David Brock's piece on Michael Huffington in the January Esquire, on newsstands Thursday.

"I didn't out him," Brock told Media Circus. "Huffington came to me and told me his story."

Here's a pared-down version of that story: Very, very rich Republican man spends $30 million -- the most ever spent on a nonpresidential campaign -- on a Senate race he doesn't want to win. Why? Because he's living someone else's life.

The Texas oil scion's political ascent begins when, in 1991, Huffington hears about a Republican training seminar for people running for office, and, since he has nothing else to do, signs on. Six months later, he announces his candidacy for Congress; $5.4 million later, the most ever spent on a congressional race, Huffington wins a seat in the House.

According to Brock's piece, Huffington soon discovers political life is boring. He acts strangely, hugs his staff members too much and too often. But Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, whose job it was to recruit Republican candidates, nonetheless tells Huffington the GOP would like him to challenge Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the 1994 election. Huffington, desperate to avoid running for reelection in the House, decides to run for the Senate, hoping to lose.

And so the man who married old Mortimer Zuckerman flame and syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, the man whom Norman Mailer, after one of many soirees at the Huffingtons' Washington home, said would someday be president, spent a third of his net worth, got his wish, lost the Senate seat, quit politics, left Washington, maneuvered his wife into a divorce, told Brock and Esquire magazine readers about his 50-year struggle with homosexuality, found surcease in movie production and may well live happily ever after.

Why exactly is the now-happy Huffington telling Brock all this? "He's a public figure," says Brock. "He figured that if he was going to live life openly, the way he chooses, sooner or later aspects of his sex life would get reported in gossip columns, etc. He decided it was in his interest to reveal his homosexuality in the context of his life story, in a dignified way." The writer explains that Huffington didn't say that exactly but he did say that "his 50-year struggle to accept himself might help others to understand themselves a bit sooner."

Great details about the Huffington honeymoon and the conception of the Huffington's two children, some words about a vital difference between Zuckerman and Huffington and a public service message too -- that's about as much as you could ask from a monthly men's magazine.

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