Rosie: Say it ain't so, Bill

Rosie O'Donnell waltzed in with Vice President Al Gore at Sunday's premiere of her new Miramax movie, Wide Awake, a benefit for her For All Kids Foundation. But she spoke out on Monday's The View TV show about allegations against President Clinton:

"I hope it's not true," she said. "The president not only has to be a good leader, he has to be a good man." White House interns are really children, she feels, and not to be taken advantage of.

O'Donnell was busy with the movie party after the screening (she plays sports-loving nun), so she wasn't among the 30 at the Democratic fund-raising dinner Miramax's Harvey Weinstein gave for Gore at the Righa Royal Hotel, with Glenn Close, Cab- levision's Jim Dolan, Martha Stewart, among others. Denis Leary and Dana Delany, Wide Awake co-stars, hit both events. Madonna saw the movie, but made neither party.

OPENINGS: "I laid a good one on him tonight!" Angela Bassett beamed about Macbeth co-star Alec Baldwin.

Yes, Bassett's very sensual Lady Macbeth had planted a lengthy kiss on her hubby on opening night at New York's Public Theater on Thursday. She'd avoided it before be- cause she'd had a cold, and there are no understudies in George C. Wolfe's strenuous production. "But tonight was special," she said.

Muscular Baldwin, who easily picks up his lady in his arms, never knows what to expect from Bassett onstage. He said at the opening night party: "There's three or four little tricks she has — sometimes she grabs my crotch in one scene, sometimes in another. Sometimes she kisses me in one scene or in another. She mixes it up pretty good. She's like a great pitcher!"

Wife Kim Basinger cheered from the audience. "Tonight was a huge night for him," she said. "He told me whenever I'm in the audience, he's more nervous. He's never done Shakespeare before, so I'm just so thrilled.

"It takes a lot of guts . .. to have to do eight performances a week and almost three hours a pop. It's very emotional, and all the physicality, the swords, the blood, the sweat. ... Just to know the lines is amazing"

With lines like "the cistern of my lust," the saga of the tragic monarch can't help but bring to mind the current presidential scandals. Baldwin told me, "People always ask do I want to go into politics, and if I had to answer that today, the answer is no. Nothing about it has any decency or honor anymore. . . . I just see a bunch of people who want to kill each other in the press, cannibalize each other. It's all kind of filthy and degrading, and very depressing.

"The people in this country want leaders they can look up to, and they're so sick of all of these people. I wish everybody in Washington would resign and go home. You just want to flush a toilet and get rid of everybody."

Never one to mince words, Alec.

Basinger wasn't sure what she'll wear to Monday night's Academy Awards, where she'll be up for best supporting actress in L.A. Confidential. "Oh, my God, it's Thursday! And I don't know!"

She knows she wants "something clean and really fresh. You see so many different kinds of dresses, you get dizzy. I'm so not a clothes person that I really have to get in that mode.

...This year, I just want to do it simple, something I can walk in and will not have to be insecure in" she also is fearful of tripping in those high heels.

Baldwin will join her at the Oscars in Los Angeles, since the theater is dark Mondays, but he has to be up at dawn Tuesday to get back.

"He did it last weekend just to see us, to see the baby," Basinger said. "He's a strong guy, but I want him to really take it easy after this play."