Paradise Preoccupied

My brilliant and talented niece has a piece in today’s Huff Post that jives with a note I’ve had on my desktop for a couple of days, proving something about family … or not … and prompting me to write about Carl Bernstein.

Her post in the Post covers Berntein’s new ‘must read’, “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton”, and quotes him as making much of how important he … ooops … it is.

I have no doubt it’s a page turner that’s flying off the shelves; after all, who’s hotter than Hillary at the moment, and Carl sports journalistic gravitas like like a bull dangles mountain oysters.

Not only does promise of an up-close-and-personal look, no matter how over-the-shoulder a peek down the blouse, at the cast iron bra that Mrs. Clinton must wear to deal with her fidelity-challenged Mr. guarantee buzz and sales, any hint of sex and scandal gets an extra boost when the Bernstein name goes with.

Which brings me to the note on my desk.

Carl Bernstein on marital devotion and loyalty. That’s rich!

Leave it to someone who’s been living on a little island in the middle of nowhere for years to remind those who may have forgotten that the uproariously funny book “Heartburn” … a truly inspired takedown of an unfaithful husband with appalling timing and equally poor taste in dalliance partners … was based on Berntein’s real-life philandering by his amazingly talented, now fabulously famous … then profoundly pregnant … ex-wife, Nora Ephron.

Hands down the best retribution ever dealt a wandering ego-with-a-penis, Ms. Ephron managed not only to keep readers, and eventually film-goers, highly entertained while inspiring women to brook no crap and proving that being the cheatee in a marraige can be turned into a position of great power, she put spending time with Carl Bernstein high in the top ten of what no self-respecting woman in her right mind would ever consider.

Yes, it was hard for the guy to get a date. May still be.

So, intimately familiar with all that is Washington politics as he is, as well, who better to probe the ins and outs of Hillary’s dealing with Bill’s ins and outs than the man single-handedly responsible for a British Baroness being forever thought of as the woman with a nose like a thumb and a mid-90s spike in the popularity of Key Lime Pie?