That's one healthy advance

12/22/2000

It may take a village to raise a child, but it will take thousands of villages to help Simon & Schuster recover its up-front advance for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs detailing her eight years in the eye of the Clinton storm.

On the face of it, one would think that if she is in a bidding war with her husband for a tell-all memoir of the Clinton years, his contract should be worth about $20 million. If, after all, it is lurid details you want about Monica Lewinsky, the president, uh, was there and Mrs. Clinton wasn't.

Not that anyone can begrudge either of them the money, although some ethics watchdog groups are demanding that her contract be reviewed by the Senate Ethics Committee. The Clintons have an estimated $10 million in legal bills to pay off, as an offshoot of the Republicans' dogged effort to impeach, jail, or at least disgrace the Clintons, as well as a huge mortgage on their house in Chappaqua, N.Y., which reportedly is being sold at a profit. Mrs. Clinton was spotted looking at a huge mansion in Washington's fashionable Georgetown area for use whenever she is there on Senate business, which often is most of the year.

Both Clintons need a place to live, and judging by the wind-chill factor that reportedly sometimes exists when the two are together, it is entirely possible that they may live in separate houses, whatever they do about their marital relationship.

Is there $8 million, $10 million, or $20 million worth of literary merit in the ghost-written memoirs of either of the First Couple? A publicist for Simon & Schuster said, “This personal perspective on our recent history promises to be one of the most remarkable books of our time.”

That may depend on just how detailed she wants to get.

We've got a hunch a whole lot of folks will be willing to buy Hillary's book. They've been waiting a long time to find out what she thinks about, well, a lot of things.