Turns out Susan Estrich, who describes herself as a good friend of Bill Clinton, was a guest at one of those White House sleepovers last year. And she didn't even have to pay for it. In fact, the president paid her -- in the form of what would seem unusually sensitive confidences about his marriage. Which confidences Estrich has now disclosed, willy nilly, in the pages of George magazine.
Estrich told Clinton why she was soon to divorce her husband. And Clinton, she writes, told her precisely why he had avoided such a result. As Ms. Estrich quotes the president: "If Hillary had walked out, it would have made Monica an impeachable offense. . . . They think I got away with it. They have no idea what we went through to save this marriage, how hard we've worked to save it. Or perhaps how important it was that we did . . . not just for the country, but for the two of us."
THE SCRAPBOOK is flabbergasted by Clinton's blunt acknowledgment that his presidency was rescued not by the Constitution, but by his wife; had he lost Hillary, he'd have lost his job. THE SCRAPBOOK is not at all surprised, however, by Clinton's latest exposition of the cosmology of narcissism. "How important" it was "for the country" that he and his wife stay married! And "not just for the country" -- a relatively small thing, that, after all -- "but for the two of us."
Make that the three of us -- or really all of us. For how important it was, too, that the president shared these private thoughts with Susan Estrich -- so that we might read about them in George.