Clinton

might call it, “Darth Vader’s theme” — as the unannounced veep himself made his way in from the wings to occupy the final seat on the dais (that would be the one marked with the mysterious place card that read “Richard Hunter” … since this is a family newspaper, we’ll let your mind ponder the abbreviations of that one for a while…).

The result: first a smattering of polite applause. Then more. Then one person stood. Then another. Then another, until the whole room was standing, whooping and clapping for the man with a 23 percent approval rating.

Not that the whole room was press. There were more than a few Republicans and friends and relatives of the Second Couple, including their daughters, Liz and Mary. It made club President Jerry Zremski’s usual warning to the TV audience that applause may be coming from guests “and not necessarily from members of the working press” that much more appropriate.

But even many of the press members on stage were relatively friendly: NBC’s Pete Williams, a former Pentagon reporter and native of Casper, Wyo., Chris Berry, general manager of conservative talk station WMAL, and conservative journalist Jeff Gannon.

As for Lynne, she focused on the themes of her memoir. When she thinks back on growing up in Wyoming, she said, “I am struck by the absence of cynicism” about things like her baton twirling. She said when she came to Washington, she tried to keep her baton prowess “under wraps” until she discovered that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was also a twirler.

She said Wonder Woman was her favorite role model, which resulted in a “moment of complete empathy with the feminist movement” when Gloria Steinem put the super-heroine on the first issue of Ms. magazine.
And while the vice president smirked along, Lynne recalled how he broke up with her in high school to “play the field” — an experiment that “lasted exactly 11 days.”

And we may have more books from Lynne on the way. In response to whether she might write any more racy novels, she simply replied, “Yes.”