Madame Secretary

On the cover of Esquire's May issue on women: Christina Hendricks, the curvy redhead from "Mad Men." Inside, photos of half-dressed actresses and models; the usual features on fashion and food, music and movies; an eclectic assortment of "personality profiles," this time including Lady Gaga (gah!) and Paris Hilton (double gah!); and a Q&A interview with Carol Bartz, the unapologetically hard-ass CEO of Yahoo!.

What might sound like fluff is saved, however, by a brilliant piece on Hillary Clinton, crafted by Tom Junod, one of the magazine's stable of very talented writers.

The headline and subhead capture the essence of the piece, as they should:
"Hillary. Happy."
She has lived the most extraordinary American life. Now she lives in extraordinary exile -- from the two men she is most loyal to, from politics, from controversy. And it has freed her.

At the start of what became a seemingly endless 2008 presidential campaign, I was inclined to vote for Hillary. Sure, she was a wooden, painfully scripted speaker but she brought tremendous intellect and insider experience from eight years in the White House and six years in the U.S. Senate.

But when the charismatic and inspiring Barack Obama came along, touting a new approach to national politics (one that would emphasize bipartisanship) and foreign policy (one that would have America re-engage in international diplomacy after the bellicose Bush years), my vote went to the senator from Illinois.

I don't regret changing loyalties and I'm glad Hillary accepted Barack's invitation to serve as secretary of state. (See how well I know them? I'm on a first-name basis...Actually, Junod points out that these two are the only American political celebrities known globally by their first names. Not Bill.)

But, like a lot of Americans, I've wondered what it's really been like for Hillary in her new job, immersed in the world of obtuse dialogue and ceremony, far from the heat and blinding lights of Beltway politics and insipid partisan politics that have infused nastiness and ignorance into national debates about health care, immigration reform and judicial appointments.

Wonder no more. Junod does a brilliant job of taking us through Hillary's history -- as the ambitious "co-president" when Bill was in office, as the humiliated partner in the world's most scrutinized marriage, as the well-respected senator from New York, as the reluctant candidate whose inevitable nomination to the presidency was thwarted by Obama.

And now? She is undeniably one of the president's greatest assets, Junod writes. Polls show that Americans rate Obama more favorably on her foreign policy than domestic policy. And, Junod notes, her global celebrity makes her indispensable to the administration even as it exiles her to endless touring, trying to rebuild fences where Bush-Cheney knocked them down. At age 62, Hillary traveled a quarter of a million miles in her first year as secretary of state, which means she has lived separately from her husband and gained an ironic respite from speculation about her personal life --- because she has no time for a personal life.

There's much to like in this piece, which is clearly sympathetic to Hillary and leaves you wondering what if.

"We will never know if Hillary Clinton would have made a great president," Junod writes. "What we do know, based on the way she's done her job as secretary of state — with her loyalty feeding her capacity for self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice awakening her genius for competence — is that she'd probably make a great president now, having lost her chance forever."

There are several great scenes in this profile, but I choose this one as emblematic of the intellect, loyalty and inner strength that Clinton brings to her job as well as a neat segue to the human qualities -- physical and personal -- that come to light in the piece.

You don't know how she does what she does. You don't know how anyone possibly could. You see her use her hands to push herself up when it's time to stand up from the day's work at the dais; you see her use the banister when she's climbing the steep steps from the runway to the waiting plane. You see her so tired that her face looks almost punctured. You see her emerging from one closed-door conference after another, standing next to one ceremonial man after another, speaking in the same dead diplomatic tongue, staring at him and nodding as he speaks in a language she doesn't understand, and you wonder if the job she has taken is a parodic reiteration of the poses she mastered as a political wife.

You wonder, as you have always wondered, what goes on in her mind while her face sets itself into its unruffled mask. And you wonder, mainly, when she is going to yawn. She never does. Her job seems to dare her to yawn, and yet she never does, while you, you who worry about her as you follow her, you who wonder where she gets her strength from ..."Well, I appreciate your coming on the trips and following us around," Hillary Clinton says when you get the chance to visit her at the State Department. She gives you her hand, and it is small and lightly freckled.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/women/women-issue/hillary-clinton-0510-5#ixzz0oOK4bhC9

Photo of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden by Pete Souza, White House photographer

Photo gallery: Getty Images