Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom.

• Author: Kaus, Mickey

Arianna Huffington is a social climber who married oil heir Michael Huffington, insinuated herself into the inner circles of the national Republican party, and then got divorced from her husband after he lost his bid to become a U.S. senator from California. One would like to believe she is deeply evil. Unfortunately, she is also charming and witty (at least if you don't work for her) and seems to genuinely care about political ideas. That, and her willingness to trash fellow Republicans, has increased her value as a member of the pundito-entertainment complex even as her serious political ambitions grow ever-more unrealistic.

Greetings From the Lincoln Bedroom must have seemed like a good idea: a satirical Lewis Carrollish fantasy in which the droll, idealistic Arianna spends a harrowing weekend in the through-the-looking-glass world of the Clinton White House. But just as the galleys went out to reviewers, the Lewinsky scandal broke. With impressive speed, Huffington has turned out a revised Monicafied version, heavily overloaded with lame oral sex jokes, but at least not totally obsolete.

Judging from the acknowledgments, Huffington had a lot of help, though one of those she thanks, her friend Harry Shearer, can't have had that much to do with this project. If he had, it would have been a lot funnier. Nothing in Lincoln Bedroom is as good as Shearer's imaginary visions of Clinton and Gingrich on his weekly public radio program "Le Show." Huffington's purpose is too didactic: basically to show that everyone in Washington is mired in a sea of corruption and hollow compromise -- everyone, that is, except humble little Arianna/Alice, who (as the book's setup would have it) arrives for her White House weekend after losing a bet and contributing $300 to the Democratic National Committee. She goes to a seance with the Red Queen (Hillary), meets a hideous two-faced creature called The Bipartisan, attends various shakedowns; with corporate donors, and worries about a "late-night visit from the Fondler-in-Chief." The main voices of wisdom she encounters are Socks (who talks) and, yes, an ancient black servant named Walter, who says things like, "You don't want nothing to do with them Bipartisans, Mrs. Huffington."

The book ends with a nauseating sitcom-like moment of sanctimony when poor Arianna is chased back to her room by a horrifying mob only to be rescued by (yes, again!) the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, who delivers a lecture on the real...