[ N E W S ]
Stalking Sidney Blumenthal
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Is it possible Christopher Hitchens and his "former friend" are both telling the truth?

[ C O L U M N I S T ]
Left Hook: Taking it out on Sid
By Joe Conason
The frustrated House managers are helping Ken Starr go after one of the president's aides out of revenge

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SID AND CHRISTOPHER'S NAKED LUNCH | PAGE 1, 2
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With admirable honesty, "The View's" hosts never let us forget that they're doing a job, one that's a damn sight more enviable than ours. It's fitting, really, at a time when sitcom audiences avidly follow the upper-class follies of lawyers, doctors and fashion editors, that Babs and company acknowledge readily and often the gulf between them and the viewer. (On a recent show, Star Jones pulled the signal busier-than-thou '90s careerist move, whipping out a cell phone in mid-interview with Judge Judy Sheindlin to take a call from Mom.) They have drivers, they have law degrees, they dine with Prince Edward, they negotiate interviews with Monica Lewinsky. You don't. Deal with it.

Seeking a piece of this action came four ingenues -- a Nordstrom saleswoman, a newspaper reporter, a TV anchor and a former cast member from MTV's "The Real World" -- who exchanged patter in the opening round table, co-hosted light advice segments and, above all, in this haven of commercial tie-ins, shilled with gusto, helping Victoria's Secret models and self-help authors move units, and even, in one case, donning a hairpiece and holding up "Price Is Right"-style price tags to help Jones push her new line of wigs.

Well, isn't the grunt-level humiliation of young aspirants -- the willingness to grit your teeth and run the boss's errands -- the driving engine of our economy? Isn't the job interview's excruciating dance between sycophancy and belligerence the most important skill in boom or bust? Certainly, anyway, it's top-notch TV, proof that some canny producer should be pitching Fox a reality program of taped job interviews. Forget animal attacks, drug busts or booby-trapped birthday cakes. Watching someone banter about the impeachment trial and her boyfriend and a woman in England who had 20 kids, all the while knowing that her chance at national TV stardom is at stake -- that's edge-of-your-seat TV.

Consider the chitchat minefield facing she who would be Matenopoulos. You have to ingratiate yourself while striking provocative sparks. You can't be too bubbly (heed the ghost of Debbie!) or too dour (delightfully grouchy New York Post writer Amy Kean may have hurt herself grousing about being shushed at the movies by "some freak! Who probably came to the movies alone!"). You have to remind us that you're young without implying your co-hosts are old. And you have to discuss oral sex with Barbara Walters without plotzing on camera (you don't know from "the coarsening of American discourse" until you've heard the doyenne of soft focus say "penetrated").

The candidate with the biggest fan base (and, judging by her being invited back for a third day, the inside track) was Rachel Campos, best known to viewers of MTV's "The Real World" season three as the comely, big-eyed 22-year-old conservative who messed around with psycho bike messenger Puck. A "View" spokesperson says more candidates may yet be auditioned, but if Campos lands the gig, she'll continue one of the strangest careers in showbiz history. The first "Real World" cast member to snag a national TV platform outside MTV (whose "Road Rules" specials, reunions and dance-party shows provide GI Bill-style support for "Real World" vets), Campos will have made a life as a professional twentysomething.

In other words, she's a new type of star, the personality famous for being representative. On "The Real World," Campos pushed a whole row of popular youth-type buttons -- rebellious Hispanic Catholic with Republican politics and a wild side -- plus, as an easy-on-the-eyes conservative, she presaged Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Ann Coulter and the whole raft of male and female MSNBC Friends. (The candidates, by the way, skewed decidedly rightward, showing the enduring value of the ever-popular betrayal-of-the-'60s schtick.) Five years later, she stands for the maturation of the "Reality Bites" crowd, having lost the convent-schoolgirl skirts and become a teacher and even, in a segment detailing Puck's recent jail stint, assuring us that while the publicity-crazed bike messenger is a dear old friend, she's moved on now. Like each candidate, Campos delicately but firmly pushed her Class-of-18-to-34 cred, with a combination of obeisance to her baby boom overlords ("Your generation had a defining moment; all we have is this Clinton scandal") and asserting herself as a Gen-X spokeswoman in classic fashion, by denouncing the label as a media construct -- all, of course, while applying for a job whose chief qualification is her birth date.

Still, I can't begrudge candidates' milking their youth, since, judging by the (willing! willing!) departure of their predecessor, it could also be their biggest liability. The four older hosts had far greater chemistry with one another than with Matenopoulos, as a "View" producer acknowledged to the New York Post. And isn't that just like the office too? As middle managers get replaced by cheap, energetic youthbots working 80-hour weeks, as the business press fawns over 30-year-old zillionaire entrepreneurs, age is thicker than any other unifier in today's office -- a situation only intensified in the "Logan's Run" world of women broadcasters. And generational tension bubbled up during the tryouts, at least in jest, as when Kean dissed women who take weight-loss pills: "It's great that we have another skinny little bitch on the show!" Behar ripped, smiling.

Now that's entertainment. Indeed, maybe this happenstance crossing of "The Real World" and "The View" suggests something bigger than a "World's Craziest Job Interviews" one-off: the 24-Hour Work Channel. With hidden cameras throughout the workplace, the wiring's already in place, along with an even more crucial piece of infrastructure. The office, not the home, is really where the heart is now.
SALON | Feb. 9, 1999

James Poniewozik's Under the Covers column appears every Tuesday in Salon.