Professionally? I admire what she’s done. Personally? No. Not now.

If there is no moral judgements, it signals approval. Yes, we all have failings, but shouldn’t we learn from those mistakes? Should there not be regret when we hurt others? Adultery is wrong. It hurts and destroys families. BW’s regret is that it damaged his career…what about his honor, his integrity, his soul? She seems to place more value on a career than good character. While I applaud her honesty now, I have difficulty respecting her lack of remorse and cringe at her reveling in bedding a married man.

Reminds me of that Mae West quote: “Keep your diary and someday it will keep YOU.”

Jackie, MK has the attitude which is, in large part, why Senator Clinton is having such a difficult time. What is not only stale but sickening, is the assumption that woman are not as strong or resilient as men. Joke. Senator Hillary Rodham could run rings around most men and come out the winner. I believe there could be some chicanery going on….and it will escalate until they’ve ‘done her in’. Oh surely, that couldn’t happen could it?

Ugh. A serious newswoman? I don’t think so. It is so unseemly to dish on a 30plus year old affair with a married man and then go and every talk show and yap about it some more. Oh, and by the way, he was black, so shocking. Snore.

Barbara Walters WAS pretty good until………..she threw Rosie out to the dogs……that would be the perky blonde with the smug smile on “The View”, a show I watched with interest until they got more concerned with ratings than a good show. I’ve heard enough about Barbara Walters and what a great leader of women she was; how Harry mistreated her; how terribly hard it was……talk about not letting go and dropping out of the race!

Liz, you are so good and honorable at what you do because you take pains not to betray or hurt people. Ditto for Cindy Adams, another lady of the gossip columns. That said, I have just read AUDITION by Barbara Walters. Usually I do not read autobiographies of news people because I find that the stories or people they cover are generally more interesting than who they are. This has not been the case with AUDITION, a deeply moving work, especially the parts about her parents, sister and daughter. I saw her devotion to family up close in the course of a day-in-the-life-of magazine cover story I wrote about her on the eve of her move to ABC. The morning of the interview her mother and sister were at the apartment; they were standing, shyly, in the back of a sofa in front of bookshelves. Barbara introduced them with so much love and respect all the while mindful of their privacy. My sense was that they, in turn, did not want to intrude on her moment in television history; they wanted it to belong to her alone. At lunch that same day in her apartment Barbara was so gracious with lovely Icodel Tomlinson. (I loved the photo of them and the caption in the book) That evening, before going out with Alexis Lichine (not much to reveal here), I watched as Barbara tucked her daughter, Jacqueline, into bed. She sat on her daughter’s bed and hugged and kissed her. There was so much love between them. AUDITION is a tapestry of truths. Truthfully, I thought I wouldn’t read the book because it might be yet another self-serving tome by yet another television journalist. AUDITION most certainly isn’t. Nor did I want to hear anymore about sexism in the workplace. However, what Walters reveals on this subject is both useful and instructive. I saw first-hand how Harry Reasoner behaved with her. When I interviewed him about Barbara, he grunted and said something dismissive about her. At the time I thought that he would be very burdensome; she would have to maneuver her way around his intransigent lump of a self which, to my thinking, would be a waste of her large talent and energy. Through so much hard work and grace, she would triumph, and I so respect her for this. Never once did she make an unkind remark—not even a veiled one—about Reasoner. Being young and callow when I did the interview, I couldn’t understand why Barbara, so talented, would become mired in worry about the headlines, just mean and jealous. Why didn’t she just blow off her ill-intentioned critics? Reading AUDITION, I came to realize that her financial future was at stake. She was supporting her parents and her daughter at the time. As a further tribute to her, she never once bellyached—or even mentioned—her circumstance in the interview. In other words, she wouldn’t play for sympathy or compromise her parents in any way. I so respect her for this. Confession: I have had some dust-ups with Barbara Walters because I was too often intemperate in my responses. On one occasion, the magazine where I worked wanted an interview with Barbara Streisand and Jon Peters for their Valentine’s Day issue. Two reporters had gotten nowhere so the editor asked me to pursue them because I had a reputation for never taking “no” for an answer. “Call Barbara Walter and ask her about Streisand and Peters—she interviewed them,” the editor said. Against my better judgment, believing that you don’t piggyback on other journalists’ interviews, I called her. Rightfully, she declined, and already so irritated by doing what I shouldn’t in the first place, I acted very rudely with her and her staff. Years later, when I wanted to interview her for a “Modern Maturity” profile, she declined. For some time, owing to my twin sister’s serious illness and before that after a rancid novel I regretted writing, I had slumped into a very fallow period. The interview with Walters, I reasoned, would be a way to resuscitate my career, as I was just coming out of a deep depression. When she turned me down, through her press person, I became irate, no way to behave. Before reading AUDITION, I am ashamed to say, I was still nursing my ill-founded grievances. To this day my reactions are a cause of shame. I know better. I apologize here and now. So much of AUDITION resonated with me. I had a mother, a judge, who felt guilty about working. She, too, was so respectful of the people who looked after the six of us at home while she was on the bench. On big regret: Barbara couldn’t speak at a women judges meeting, organized by my mother and with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in attendance, because of a prior commitment. (My mother did so much for me, and I wanted to be able to return this in some small way. Years later, after my mother’s death, I gave my beloved older sister, travelling to South Africa, lunch with Helen Suzman (another interviewee of mine) as a birthday gift) There was, as with Barbara’s daughter, always room to succeed and to fall, knowing all the while we were loved. My nephew, a child of divorce, went to a school, Cascade, now closed, similar to the one Barbara’s daughter attended. He really shines today; he is an exemplary young man. The outcome for him, like Jacqueline, was a fine one. Sorrowfully, that would not be the case with others. I think it is just great what Barbara’s daughter is doing. I too lived a life of privilege, albeit uninterrupted, and her travels through Europe as a young woman recalled for me my own. At the same time, unlike Barbara, I had an obnoxious sense of entitlement that did not always serve me well in my career. Hard as I worked, and I did, putting in 15-hour days, I could not tolerate any bumps along the way. Rather than become involved with office politics, I would just walk. Huxley was wrong. Consistency is not the hobgoblin of small minds. Consistency is the stuff of champions. I hope this seemingly interminable post, with all my asides, is not entirely obnoxious. Memory, I suppose, can be both a blessing and a curse. What I want to say, finally, is “Bravo, Barbara Walters!” P.S.Congratulations for getting into Sarah Lawrence College, my first choice. I only made Waiting List, a failure all the more painful as my older sister was accepted by Radcliffe, Wellesly and Bryn Mawr. Also—how’s this for a non sequitur—I met, albeit briefly, Senator Brooke while on a family holiday in the Virgin Islands decades ago, and, wow, was he attractive and charming.