The Company He Keeps Biography

• Published in: The New York times
• Main Authors: Dowd, , Michael Kelly and Maureen
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 17.01.1993
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: Bush, George; Clinton, Bill; CLINTON, BILL (PRES); Clinton, Hillary; CLINTON, HILLARY RODHAM; DOWD, MAUREEN; GORE, AL (VICE PRES); Gore, Albert Jr; KELLY, MICHAEL; Reagan, Nancy; UNITED STATES POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
• ISSN: 0362-4331

We're in a reaching out sort of mood this Inauguration. We're connecting. We're opening up. We're celebrating diversity and embracing wholeness. We're on an odyssey of self-discovery. We're thinking communitarian, New Covenant, a Government that looks like America, inclusive not exclusive, omnicultural. We're having Renaissance Weekends, wearing our names strung around our necks on pieces of colored yarn and talking about renewal of nation and self. We've released our inner children and are looking for nannies for them. We're feeling a little weepy, but that's O.K. (and you're O.K., too, although your family's dysfunctional). We're wearing clothes that look like the Summer of Love, only a lot more expensive, and the designer gives part of the profit to Friends of the Earth. We're not buttoned down and monogrammed anymore: We have a President named Bill, a First Lady named [Hillary Rodham Clinton], a First Daughter named Chelsea and an Attorney General named Zoe. We're hugging trees. We're hugging each other. We're hugging each other's trees. "Hillary feels like she's walking into Washington with her arms wide open and smiling, but she's watching on both sides," says Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the Arkansas-bred television producer of "Designing Women," "Evening Shade" and "Hearts Afire" who has known the Clintons for years. "She's not a fool. She knows that Washington is treacherous." But unlike her husband, Hillary is not someone, Bloodworth-Thomason says, who "feels the overwhelming need to be understood and validated by everyone. She will do everything she can not to be misunderstood. Then she will be who she is and let the chips fall where they may." "He eats like a Tasmanian devil -- Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, tin cans," says Mort Engelberg, a Hollywood producer ("Smokey and the Bandit") and occasional Clinton adviser who shares Clinton's accordion appetite. "You'll never find this guy asking for a splash more coffee. He's not a nervous eater. He enjoys it."