Poster Girl

Polished yet relaxed, her copper hair casually blown dry, not coiffed in the helmet of days gone by, Arianna Huffington dips into her blueberries and yogurt as if she has all the time in the world. We’re talking in her Italianate mansion in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, and though it’s a Sunday, she’s been up since 6 a.m., scouring the morning headlines; hiking with Norman Lear’s wife, Lyn; lunching with David Geffen; and correcting the galleys of her 12th book, Right Is Wrong, due out in May, in which she pours scorn on her former political allies.

“There’s no question that it’s harder to dismiss me or write a caricature now,” says Huffington, who has spent much of her life in the public gaze, and not without controversy. Over the years, she’s had various incarnations—Cambridge scholar, best-selling author, socialite, Republican wife, conservative pundit, self-help guru and liberal activist. But there’s little doubt that she’s ideally cast in her latest role: editor in chief of the Huffington Post, the news Web site and group blog whose edgy commentary has made it a must-read in liberal circles.

In person, the statuesque Huffington is softer and less imposing than she appears on TV. Dressed in a black pantsuit and a blouse with a plunging neckline, she has a ready laugh and the ability to create an instant intimacy. “She can do anything—give a speech, a toast, tell a story,” says director and writer Nora Ephron, a longtime friend. “But she can also sit there and make you think you’re the only person on the planet.” Known for her sharp wit and her trademark Gabor-sister accent, “she’s as fast on her feet as any comedian,” says Ephron, who auditioned Huffington for a role in her 1998 film, You’ve Got Mail, after spotting her on TV debating liberal poster boy Al Franken. “She was a Republican then, but for me, being funny trumps everything.” (Still, she wasn’t cast.)

Chez Huffington, there’s no separation between life and work: Her two daughters, Christina, 18, and Isabella, 16, a housekeeper and assorted assistants come and go through the Henry Higgins–style library, crammed with family photos, books, an oversize desk and numerous laptops logged on to the HuffPo, as it’s increasingly known. Central command is up the circular stairway in the corner, past the landing and hidden behind the sliding bookcase. Here, in the Huffington Post’s West Coast bureau, an office resembling a college dorm room, four staffers keep tabs on the traffic. (The editorial office is in Manhattan.) Huffington jokes with them as she clicks on to 23/6, a new comedy site financed by Barry Diller’s IAC, in which the Huffington Post is a partner. It’s an unlikely sight: a 57-year-old woman giddily surfing political campaign-ad parodies with her tech-savvy, twentysomething cohorts.