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OK, so I didn’t go to Steven and Kate’s or Alec and Kim’s place in the Hamptons last weekend to hang out with Bill and Hillary. I had promised myself I’d spend the weekend catching up on some important personal correspondence (if I was sent an orange envelope mailed on a Monday containing the correct grand-prize-winning code number, I, Ms. Anne Beatts, may have already won $11 million).

Besides, I can’t just drop everything and go running off to the East Coast every time the president has a fund-raiser. I have a responsibility to you, my readers, and I intend to fulfill it. At least until that $11-million check clears.

But I have been to the Hamptons, loads of times, maybe even more times than the president has been to McDonald’s. In fact, I used to have a house there, about which all I can say is that when you have an eight-bedroom house in the Hamptons, it’s hard to convince people you don’t have any room for them--and their pets--on the weekend.

The Clintons stayed with Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw. I’m not sure how many bedrooms their house has, but no doubt it’s quite spacious. Security for the three-acre compound is handled by former members of Mossad, so I assume the Spielbergs don’t have too much difficulty turning away any unwanted guests, from stalkers who want to rape the host to subpoena-happy Washington lawyers.

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Of course, it’s not a house at all but a barn, an antique French barn that Spielberg had brought over to the Hamptons from France, I guess because American barns lack a certain je ne sais quoi. It has a name too: “Quelle Barn,” or, in plain American, “What a Barn!” This way, if anybody ever asks les enfants Spielberg, “What’s the matter, were you brought up in a barn?” they can say yes. Or oui.

But the first couple didn’t have much time for a typical relaxing Hamptons weekend of lazing around the barn, reading the latest speculation in the Sunday papers about the president’s bodily fluids. They were caught up in a constant social whirl, sucking up those bucks for the Democratic Party, from investment banker Bruce Wasserstein’s intime (French is very big in les Hamptons this summer) little dinner for 60 on Friday night at $25,000 per couple, to a party at Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin’s Stony Hill estate, where $5,000 got you in the door, $1,000 got you in the outdoor tent, and a mere $250 bought a spot on the lawn from which you could see the door.

Of course, if you were among those locals lucky enough to get a job as a valet parker, you could check out all the action and they would pay you.

Oh, to have been there in person, rubbing shoulders with such luminaries as Billy Joel, Julie Andrews, Chevy Chase, Harvey Weinstein, Martha Stewart and former Gloria Steinem escort Mort Zuckerman! (Sad to say, wealthy Hamptonite, friend of Vernon Jordan and potential employer of Monica Lewinsky, Revlon head Ron Perelman suffered a sudden attack of discretion and was called away to Ibiza.)

And I personally can never get enough of hot band o’ the evening Hootie and the Blowfish. What was their hit again? I forget, but I know it was a real toe-tapper a couple of years ago. I guess presidential fave Stevie Nicks had a prior commitment.

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But I really didn’t need to be there to describe with absolute certainty (the same kind of certainty that tells me I’m going to win the $11 million) a number of things that I know went on last weekend. (I told you, I’ve been to the Hamptons before.) Let me share them with you. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Traffic over the approximately 80 miles from the city to the Hamptons was so bad that those people who didn’t leave Manhattan before noon or after midnight on Friday took six hours to make the trip out, a good 15 minutes longer than usual.

On Saturday morning, Spielberg checked the opening grosses for “Saving Private Ryan.” Clinton checked him checking them, and then asked for a bigger check.

When Clinton’s ice cream cone dripped on the woman behind him in line at the Candy Kitchen, she said she never planned to wash her Bermudas again. Ken Starr currently has her under subpoena.

Wafer-thin Hamptons fashionistas outside fitness Nazi Lotte Berk’s exercise salon sneered at Hillary’s thighs behind her back. Then they sneered at her back.

At times during the weekend, it crossed the president’s mind what it would be like doing the nasty with Kate Capshaw or Kim Basinger.

When a shark was spotted off-shore, presidential press secretary Mike McCurry said it was just a dolphin.

Clinton hugged and kissed a young woman. *

Someone at the party on Saturday evening made a bad joke connecting Clinton, Lewinsky and the unfortunately named Blowfish.

At least one of the $250 ticket-holders crashed the $5,000 section of the party--and then crashed back out when he realized they were having more fun outside.

Someone suggested that Billy Joel and Julie Andrews should record a duet. The weird part is, they might.

Martha Stewart pitched Harvey Weinstein a movie idea about a blond uber-homemaker who is seduced by a traveling photographer for House and Garden.

Chevy Chase said, “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not.” More than once. Someone else said, “Who’s Chevy Chase?”

Everyone dressed in his or her designer best. No one wore a navy blue dress from the Gap.

Alec Baldwin surprised everyone, including himself, by not assaulting any photographers.

* At least one such encounter was documented by the Associated Press. The woman was Adrienne Wagschal of East Hampton and New York City. Remember that name. She asked Clinton whether she could have a kiss, and he obliged, throwing in a hug as well. No word on whether Ken Starr has subpoenaed her yet.