The First Lady's First Lady?

Right-wingers hoping Ed Klein’s latest hatchet job, The Truth About Hillary (excerpted in next month's Vanity Fair), contains new revelations about the former first lady’s sapphic past will have to look elsewhere. In a clumsy clip job meant to kneecap the New York Senator’s presidential campaign, Klein rehashes allegations around since Bill Clinton’s 1978 gubernatorial term that Hillary engaged in hot girl-on-girl action with college pal Nancy “Peach” Pietrafesa. At the very least, Klein’s publisher, the conservative Penguin imprint Sentinel, could have hired a fact-checker—Pietrafesa’s name is misspelled throughout the book, an error Klein would have avoided had he actually contacted the now-married woman for comment, we hear.

“Let me break it down like this,” snipes a former Bill Clinton staffer. “Ed Klein is desperate for some exposure and resentful of the fact that he's no longer part of the Kennedy circle and no longer on Washington's A-List. He'll do anything to get on TV, even if it means touting his book on Fox News.”

Meanwhile, with the Battle for Barack in stalemate, Hillary has been courting another Democratic comer to add some color to her projected ticket. At a private dinner last week at Westwood One CEO Norm Pattiz’s Beverly Hills mansion, Hillary schmoozed some of L.A.’s biggest Dem donors but saved her best moves for the city’s mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa. A guest at the dinner says Clinton “gushed” over Villaraigosa and grabbed multiple photo ops with the rising Latino pol. “The fact is,” says the guest, “Hillary knows she’ll need Villaraigosa to capitalize on the Hispanic vote. She’s getting her licks in way before any of the other Dems.” Hill’s West Coast jaunt also generated some much-needed green. Combined with proceeds from a young Hollywood fundraiser earlier that evening—attended by Christina Aguilera and Lindsay Lohan—sources say Hilary walked away with a cool $1 million for her “senate re-election” campaign. The dough will most likely be put toward an exploratory committee in 2006 when Clinton is expected to officially declare her candidacy.

Photos: NYDN