As a college student, she was so naive that when a married Republican congressman invited her to live in his home during her internship with then-Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), she thought it was a generous offer until her parents straightened her out.
That's not quite how Malkin described it:
Several weeks preceding my arrival in Washington, I got a call from an East Coast congressman. My college had sent out notices requesting help for interns in need of temporary housing. The congressman offered me a room in his Capitol Hill residence -- for free. He was married and had a family, but lived alone in D.C. while Congress was in session. How generous, I thought. And how exciting. Here was a big-time public official calling me, inviting me to live with him for a month. I bragged about it to friends. I couldn't wait to move in. My parents responded to the idea with alarm and suspicion. I still remember the stiff, clear warnings they gave me over the phone: You can't stay there by yourself with that man. You don't even know who he is. We don't care if he's a congressman. We don't care if he's the president. You're too young. This isn't right. Naive and stubborn, I resented their opposition. Why were they treating me like a child? Why did they want to ruin my Capitol adventure before it had even begun? Yes, the congressman's offer was a little strange. A little voice in my head echoed everything my mom and dad had said. But I wanted a taste of the glamorous, inside-the-Beltway life. Only a prudish fool would turn down this innocent arrangement. A few days after the congressman had extended his offer, I still had not made up my mind. Then I received a call in my dorm room that sealed my fate. It was the congressman's wife. In a brief and bizarre conversation, she started pouring her heart out about the difficulties she was having with her husband. She asked me not to come. She cautioned me that it wouldn't turn out the way I thought it would. Yikes. I was just looking for a place to stay -- not a real-life role in the D.C. version of "Days of Our Lives." Freaked out, I immediately turned down the invitation, thanked my parents for their good sense, and ended up staying with relatives in a Maryland suburb.
It's sweeter to say she listened to her parents, but she didn't until the Congressman's wife pulled a freaker on the phone with her.