For Comic Relief, Turn To...Hillary

When Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last month popped off a funny seemingly aimed at her hubby-"What in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?"-many didn't believe her aides who claimed it proved she's a jokester. "People just don't want to believe that she's funny, has a sense of humor, or is three dimensional," says one. Well, as they say in Missouri, show me.

Let's start with her laugh. "People think that big belly laugh of hers is not real, but it is," pleads a friend. "She has a deep laugh that just makes you cackle." And apparently, it's heard often by staff. That's because she regularly plays pranks on them.

Her fave: throwing surprise birthday parties. Sometimes Bill Clinton's the butt of a joke, like the time the former president was waxing on about signs of life on Mars to the press and she whispered to staff: "OK, Bill, why don't we go upstairs and watch the Sci-Fi Channel." A private humorous moment took place in the Rose Garden when the two played catch, warming up for tossing out the first pitch at different baseball games.

"She laughed that she had the better arm," says a Hillary pal, who adds that she used to be addicted to baseball on Game Boy. So why can't she show she's a lovable yuckster? "She's not comfortable on TV, so it doesn't come across," says an ally, "but she'll get it."

By Paul Bedard