The Great Game

Its just gossip, but I'm from a small town. Gossip is a food group.

Jax

Barbara Kline is the founder of White House Nannies, one of D.C.'s foremost child-care agencies. MSNBC's Chris Matthews, ABC News' Claire Shipman and Clinton attack dog James Carville and his wife, Bush aide Mary Matalin, are among the overburdened parents who sing the praises of the lady who likes to think of herself as "the other Chief of Homeland Security."

But woe to you brusque Cabinet secretaries and media stars who've crossed her.

Kline, who obviously took note of the best-selling "Nanny Diaries," says she spent three days with Penguin Publishing's lawyers disguising the identities of some clients in her book, also called "White House Nannies," due out next month.

One high-profile White House staffer with a previous administration needed her own pacifier at the end of the day. One of Kline's nannies would find her employer and her child curled up in bed together - the baby sucking on a bottle of formula, Mom nursing a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

The sleeping wife of a candidate, annoyed by her son's screaming for candy at breakfast, dumped a bag of M&M's in his cereal and snarled, "Just give him the chocolate!"

Kline admits some of her nannies weren't always up to snuff.

One caregiver locked her 2-year-old charge in the home of a high-ranking Defense official - then the toddler crawled to freedom through a doggie door.

Another couple let their nanny live in their elegant pool house - which she turned into a brothel.

A Bush 41 administration member loved the nanny who'd taken care of her four kids for a year. But then, while removing the Christmas tree one day, the lady experienced chest pains. After calling paramedics, her employer discovered that her Mary Poppins was really Mrs. Doubtfire - a man in drag.