HISTORY GIRLS.(The Talk of the Town)

Susan Schulz is the editor-in-chief of CosmoGirl, which she describes as the magazine for "the generation that is born to lead." If such a characterization does raise a logistical question--when everyone is a leader, who is to be led?--the spirit behind the sentiment was not lost on Schulz's guests at a lunch that was held at the Four Seasons restaurant the other day, in honor of Karenna Gore Schiff. Schiff, who used to be the daughter of the next President of the United States, is the author of a new book titled "Lighting the Way," which tells the story of nine women who changed the course of American history without ever gaining elective office. It was Schulz's ambitious hope that her guest list might bear comparison with Schiff's contents page, because, she said, "I, or Karenna, or some other people here could potentially be one of those people who would be looked back on and said, 'Wow, they really did something.' "

Although CosmoGirl is not most people's idea of a magazine of ideas--the latest issue apprises readers of how they might "get Jen's arms" and "get Beyonce's butt"--the distance between its preoccupations and the wider political discourse is not as great as might sometimes be hoped. (On page 76, in a Q. & A. with the pop star Nick Lachey, a variation on an all too familiar question is asked: "Boxers, briefs, or boxer-briefs?") Schiff, who is as pretty as the twins who supplanted her and her sisters as the nation's First Daughters and as brainy as the beleaguered First Daughter who preceded them, admitted that she was not especially familiar with the publication. "I am not a regular reader, but I do have respect for their reach," she said, demonstrating the political adeptness that might be expected of one whose earliest memory is of being onstage when her father won his first congressional race, an event that happened to fall on her third birthday, prompting the crowd to sing to her.

Other guests were equally well connected. There was Silda Wall, the wife of Eliot Spitzer, who is also the ...