The book is roundly, universally cruel to Arianna.

Arianna Huffington had charmed me out of my socks to get me to manage her husband's campaign. But in a few short months, I'd come to realize that she was the most ruthless, unscrupulous, and ambitious person I'd met in thirty years in national politics—not to mention that she sometimes seemed truly pathological. Her allure and style were only a veneer: the soul of a wily sorceress lurked beneath.

Jeez. It's worth mentioning, of course, that after this debacle, Rollins went on to work for Katherine Harris in her disastrous Senate campaign. Until he quit and leaked terrible shit to newspapers. Rollins has a nasty habit of losing political campaigns and then blaming ambitious women, right? (Though in the Harris case, well, that was definitely her fault. She's fucking nuts.)

[Amazon]

We knew McCain was trying to distance himself from Bush, but this is ridiculous! (Ahem.)

It is a seriously nasty story that makes Arianna sound like a loopy new-age cut-throat bitch who doesn't even care about orphans. Much like the Private Eye story reported by Ed Rollins some time later (in which Arianna allegedly hired a detective to tail Orth), it's hard to know how much of it is actually 100% true. But it's still a fun ride! Click through for a couple excerpts from the piece.

So. Orth calls Michael Huffington a brain-dead idiot a number of times, quotes a dozen people calling Arianna his pupper-master, and even calls Michael gay, in two separate passages. (Michael Huffington came out as bisexual—though lots of people doubt even that—years later when the couple divorced.) Arianna joins a crazy new-age cult, whose leader organizes her wedding to a wealthy fool. Arianna pretends to volunteer for a childrens' charity but it's all a photo-op and she never does any work. She also fires all her servants and according to one unnamed observer calls Mexicans lazy.

As we said, an unfriendly story.

Years later, after the divorce, when Arianna became (once again, if you believe this piece) a bleeding-heart liberal, Vanity Fair amusingly ran another long profile of her. This one was glowing (comparatively). But then compared to the Orth piece, 13 pages of "WHAT A BITCH" would've been a friendly review. And here are some excerpts!

GALLERY














END

In this age when everyone, or at least half of everyone, is divorced, we accept that marriages are complex institutions that no one knows how to operate. We're used to political marriages falling apart. But what we're sick of is political wives pretending everything is okay.

Remember how Dina McGreevey seemed not to mind that her husband was a philanderer fag Gay American [Sometimes things come out harsher than we meant! —ed] at the first press conference? That strategy didn't really work, because it turns out, she really did care quite a bit. And back in the Gennifer Flowers era, Hillary Clinton also did the stand-by-your man routine, and defended Bill on 60 Minutes. It was the first of many lies the Clintons would tell us about their marriage. Suzanne Thompson, Larry Craig's wife, is still playing make-believe, but we know the tell-all book will be out by the time Larry Craig leaves the Senate. The thing is, holding your husband's hand and embracing him after the press conference is sort of like popping a pimple. It might give off short term satisfaction, but ultimately, it will create a scar.

In our own way, we're sort of pissed at Eliot Spitzer, too. We thought he was better than the rest of New York politicians. Like, you, we may be able to forgive him over time. But for our sake, don't act like everything is all right, because between you and him, and the State of New York and him, it's just not.

XOXO,
Gawker