THIS capital has more on its plate than what hostesses serve during the festive season. The guests are talking about the president they re elected seven weeks ago, whose new term begins on January 20th. They are wondering what he is likely to serve them in the next four years - and even if he will be around for four years.
Presidents have a tendency to fade in their second terms. It was not the case with Franklin D. Roosevelt because he had a huge domestic programme to carry through. The American economy was still in depression. There was a war and he ran for a third term, a solution constitutionally denied his successors.
Harry Truman is remembered for his first term when he succeeded FDR and the world fell on top of him - as he put it at the time. His second term was marked by scandals, now mostly forgotten.
Truman established a Federal Employee Loyalty programme which Senator Joseph McCarthy used to devastating effect during the "red scare" of the early 1950s. In November 1951, Truman's popularity rating was a measly 23 per cent.
President Eisenhower's popularity also tumbled in his second term, during which he was ill much of the time. When he wasn't ailing he was playing golf. The U2 spying missions of the late 1950s might have led to a world conflict, and Eisenhower seemed not to know much if anything about them.
He did not confide in his vice president, Richard Nixon he wanted to dump him in 1952 and wouldn't endorse him for president against Jack Kennedy in 1960 "until he absolutely had to" the Republican candidate himself admitted (off the record).
Nixon called Eisenhower, a president Americans recall as an always smiling figure exuding warmth, "cold as ice. He was very charming and warm socially, but he was a hard ass. He was tough son of a bitch ... he was bigger than life, but he could also be a pretty petty guy."
In his book Leaders, Nixon said Churchill blamed Eisenhower "for letting the Soviets overrun eastern Europe". Nixon wrote: "Eisenhower was not Churchill's kind of general". Churchill praised Ike's easy going personality, which "may have accounted for the remarkable amity that characterised the collaboration within the Allied Command. That alone was an indispensable contribution to winning the war".
Nixon's successor, after Gerry Ford, Jimmy Carter did not get the chance of a second term. Ronald Reagan saw to that with his quip during their final debate "There he goes again!". America laughed. But Reagan too, had a depressing second term, from his point of view, because of Iran contra. Walter Cronkite, a veteran reporter and television newsman, wrote in his recent autobiography, that Carter was the smartest US president he had ever interviewed.
Bill Clinton may wonder about this own second term and how it will turn out now that the Justice Department has added to his woes by launching yet another investigation, this time into his legal defence fund. The campaign fund revelations may cause him problems, but they'll have to take their place in the queue.
There is a story that a former White House staffer will testify against the president. Even if true, what can he say that has not been said before? The real truth is that Bill Clinton was born under a lucky star and what he does best is discomforting his enemies.
He is smarter than they are. Unlike Jimmy Carter, he uses that attribute to defeat them.