Read Online All the Presidents' Pets by Mo Rocca - Free Book Online Page A

President was wearing sunglasses and “double-fisting”—teen queen Hilary Duff under one arm and her archrival Lindsay Lohan under the other. “C’mon, girls,” whooped Clinton hoarsely, “if I could bring Arafat and Rabin together . . .”
    Everyone laughed, including conservative writer Bernie Goldberg. His latest effort,
Diatribe,
was stuck at #5, despite a blockbuster quote attributed to his nemesis, the liberal columnist Paul Krugman: “Americans  1 . . . should  2 . . . stab  3 . . . President Bush  4 . . . in  5 . . . the  6 . . . head.  7 ”
    Creating quite a stir were former NOW president Patricia Ireland and Fox News
Special Report
anchor Brit Hume, the two of whom were dancing a mean lambada. The two had bonded the year before, at a callback audition for HBO’s canceled series
K Street.
    Surely these people had very real differences with each other. But they all seemed to understand that like supporting a White House at war, supporting the First Pet was a political must. And at a gathering like this, there was much to be gained. Former
Dharma & Greg
star Jenna Elfman might find a back-of-the-book quotation for her Scientology-themed celebrity children’s book,
Sarah Clear and Tall.
Senator Orrin Hatch might convince Snoop Dogg to sing a track on his next album of patriotic songs.
    Tart-tongued and ubiquitous defense attorney Gloria Allred was there, accompanied by wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking. Gloria had recently achieved the elusive Cable News Trifecta: in defiance of the time-space continuum she had managed to appear live in studio on all three cable news channels simultaneously. Hawking was convinced she held the secret to understanding the wormhole.
    Through his computerized voicebox Hawking enthused, “Laurie Dhue beautiful. Party great.”
    This
was
a great party, which was why the drab print media, generally so aloof when it came to television news events, couldn’t stay away. The
New York Times
’s reporter Linda Greenhouse came in Ugg boots and nearly fainted when
Access Hollywood
host Pat O’Brien told her what a fan he was of her Supreme Court coverage. (Yes, Ugg boots were so last year, but the
Times
was still playing catch-up on its style coverage.) Conservative mandarin and wordsmith William Safire was only too happy to explain to Tyra Banks that a Pekingese is not necessarily from the city currently named Beijing.
    Gliding through the room, decked out in vintage Givenchy and looking like Grace Kelly, Laurie beamed, graciously accepting a compliment from Queen Noor here, a “You go!” from Queen Latifah there. Henry Kissinger and Christopher Hitchens, friends after Laurie had brought them together, toasted her. “Laurie, I’m so happy for you I just feel like giggling!” tittered Hitchens.
    A momentary hush came over the crowd when Walter Cronkite rose and pronounced Laurie a credit to the profession and congratulated her on being named
Entertainment Weekly
’s Presidential Dog “It Girl.”
    Through it all a doddering Liz Smith sat in the corner scribbling down celebrity names for her next column. “Does anyone know how to spell Lainie Kazan?” she muttered to no one in particular.
    Things were a little raunchier in back where pudgy FCC overlord Michael Powell was receiving a lap dance from Courtney Love. It was hard not to be distracted by the jiggling of his own man breasts. (At least he was wearing pasties.) Conservative pitbull Sean Hannity looked on intensely as liberal Alan Colmes fidgeted nervously.
    I downed one tumbler of Scotch as fast as I could, then another. Before I got too buzzed I realized my stomach was empty so I made my way over to the buffet table. I hadn’t been eating well lately so I fixed myself a salad.
    Beside the buffet table sat a spruced-up kennel with five dogs in it, the only nod to the purported subject of Laurie’s book.