New York Times – There aren’t many secretaries of state who make it in show business. Daniel Webster doesn’t count because “The Devil and Daniel Webster” was based on his career as a lawyer and orator, not as a diplomat. Henry Kissinger was a character in the opera “Nixon in China.” The real Condoleezza Rice made a cameo as an ex-girlfriend of Alec Baldwin’s character on “30 Rock.” And that’s pretty much it, unless you count Cordell Hull’s star turn as a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s singing cabinet in “Annie.”

So, her other accomplishments aside, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is also a pioneer in the world of entertainment. It may be too soon to assess her place in history, but it is already clear that Mrs. Clinton has a huge hold on the public imagination: a woman so well known, and yet so unknowable, that writers and filmmakers keep turning to fiction to try to solve her mystery.

“Primary Colors” was a best-selling novel — and later a movie — about her marriage to Bill Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, as portrayed by Hope Davis, was the real star of “The Special Relationship,” a Peter Morgan docudrama on HBO about the Clintons and Tony Blair. Now Mrs. Clinton’s presidential ambitions — and cabinet post — are fodder for a USA Network television series, “Political Animals,” that begins on Sunday.

Sigourney Weaver plays Elaine Barrish Hammond, a pantsuited former first lady who ran for president and becomes secretary of state. This half-comic, half-serious soap opera à clef could be awful, but instead it is surprisingly fun: a fictional look at Mrs. Clinton that blends what-if alternative history with wish-fulfillment fantasy: if only she would.

Many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters couldn’t understand why she didn’t divorce her Monica Lewinsky-tainted husband after they left the White House. In this make-believe iteration, the betrayed wife doesn’t stand by her man; she kicks him out. Moments after her concession speech, she leaves the hotel suite, pausing at the door to say to her husband, “Oh, and Bud, I want a divorce.”

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