Nicole Brodeur / Times staff columnist
Swept up in Arianna's new world

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Arianna Huffington is on the line, comparing herself to JFK, and I am looking for a spot to say "OK. Bye!" or "Are you mad?"

But she's sealed up every opening.

All I asked was how a woman who went through maids like I go through Dentyne could claim concern about homelessness and poverty. How the woman who was the GOP Gepetto behind her then-husband's run for U.S. Senate could call herself a liberal.

"I don't know if you have a copy of the book," she begins.

Oh, yes. The book. She's been plugging it from The New York Times to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

It's called "Fanatics & Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America."

Huffington, 54, will lay that plan out when she appears Tuesday at Seattle's Town Hall, as part of Foolproof Performing Arts' "American Voices" series. (For tickets, go to www.foolproof.org).

The native of Greece says her views haven't changed much since her GOP days.

"I was pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control," she said. "I was the original compassionate conservative."

What has changed is her view of government.
 
"Now I see the role of government as extremely important in social change," she said. "And the social issues in which President Bush is getting government involved completely pander to the right wing."

I'll hang on for this.

Whoever wins in November has to "inspire and galvanize people to believe in politics again," Huffington said. I can feel a line coming, and she does not disappoint:

"Let George Bush own Sept. 11 and the politics of fear," she said. "John Kerry needs to own Sept. 12 and the politics of hope."

Huffington is looking forward to her visit here.

"Seattle is obviously viewed as a great, progressive bastion," she said. "And on some issues like the environment, very much ahead in terms of the passion. And it's on everybody's book tour, because people read there."

Then it should be no surprise that on the same day I received her book, I got Maureen Orth's "The Importance of Being Famous," a collection of her Vanity Fair profiles.

The one of Huffington ain't pretty. Orth charges that Huffington sat in the tub and ordered the maids around, and had Orth trailed by a private eye after the piece ran.

"Everything in my life since then discredits the vacuous, hollow image that she puts forward in that story," Huffington said of Orth.

So what has she done since?

She spent $700,000 trying to get elected governor of California, only to pull out six days before the vote.

She now hosts "Left, Right and Center," a public-radio show. (She's the Left.) She even drives a Prius. Consider the conversion complete.

Fine, but can we talk about Jon Stewart?

"He's absolutely, utterly magnificent," Huffington said. "Not preachy but incredibly powerful."

God, that sounds good.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

Her impression is a little too good.

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