What to think about the battle of the wronged women

This weekend the mainstream media is making much of the similarities between Hillary Rodham Clinton and her likely Republican opponent in the 2006 New York Senate election, Republican Jeanine Pirro. Both favor abortion rights and a ban on assault weapons (are there any other kind of weapons?), we are told. But more importantly, both have "husband issues." As Reuters puts it (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050814/pl_nm/newyork_dc):

When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name comes up for re-election next year, New York voters may well be choosing between a high-powered female attorney with a wayward husband and a high-powered female attorney with a wayward husband.

Well, that's all well and good, just the kind of cute analogy that the press uses to fill up the Sunday pages in advance of their deadlines so that they can take the weekend off with the rest of us. Even more, it undermines the image of the Republican party as the bastion of moral rectitude, a consistent trope of the mainstream media.

But as Don Carson intoned repeatedly in the class on intertestamental literature at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and as I have repeated endlessly in classes as well, when people insist on the significance of similarities, one should look at differences.

So what are the similarities?

Businessman Albert Pirro spent eleven months in the federal pen for tax evasion. Later, a DNA test demonstrated statistical certitude that he is the father of another woman's child. So, he's a cheat in more senses than one, and it's certifiable. Hillary's husband (remember him?) also had an extramarital fling with one Monica Lewinsky. The blue dress certifies that too.

Well, there's the similarity: both men humiliated their wives by cheating on them. That's it, right?

Hmm. Let's think about the differences.

Albert Pirro is a private citizen. Yes, his wife is a prominent prosecutor, and he presumably plighted the usual troth to his bride. But as far as the political issue goes, his marital unfaithfulness had impact limited to those who are part of his family and the family of the other woman, including their child. He worked for himself. And as far as we know, he made no sworn statements to the effect that he was not this child's father.

William Jefferson Clinton, however, worked for about 280 million of us at the time of his unfaithfulness. That might be overlooked, given the indifference of many of those 280 million to such matters. But I seem to recall that he lied about it under oath--twice--while under investigation stemming from another alleged sexual indiscretion. And besides Monica and Paula there were Gennifer and Juanita.

So from a political point of view (not a moral one, obviously), Pirro's husband shouldn't be an issue at all, if the same standards apply as do to the Clintons. No public office, no perjury. For Albert Pirro, unlike Bill Clinton, it really was "just sex."

But wait! What about Albert Pirro's financial fraud? That's another difference, right?

But I seem to recall a little matter--not so little, really--called Whitewater. Now we have another similarity.

The Clintons' financial sleight-of-hand got several people jailed, including a sitting governor of Arkansas. We can only conclude that the loyalty of some of their associates and the exceptionally high burden of proof necessary to go forward with the prosecution of a sitting president or his wife protected B & H from the same fate as others with less involvement in those real estate shenanigans.

And, by the way, Whitewater occurred while Bill was in public office as well, though then he was beholden only to the good people of Arkansas.

So it ends there. A final similarity.

No, there are differences. Hillary clearly had primary involvement in Whitewater, while Bill was busy raising Arkansas' educational standards to 49th place in the nation. Jeanine Pirro had no involvement in her husband's fraud.

So there's the last of the differences, right? Wrong again!

Jeanine Pirro's political career is entirely her own. She has succeeded in New York politics despite her husband's checkered legal and marital history. He has no influence, coattails, or positive name recognition.

Hillary on the other hand, owes her national prominence entirely to hubby Bubba's affable electability. Hey, she probably owed her partnership at the Rose law firm in Little Rock to her spousal influence on the governor.

So, does this mean that SWNID is supporting Pirro as the morally and politically superior candidate in 2006 NY? It does not.

First, no one can beat Hillary in NY. If she died, her corpse would win. She chose NY to run for the senate because it provides no prayer for a conservative opponent. All this attention to Jeanine Pirro is a way of filling the papers lull in political news in August of an odd-numbered year. If Pirro weren't so amazingly photogenic, there'd be even less attention.

Second, it won't make a dime's worth of difference to Senate operations if Hillary is reelected. The Senate will remain in Republican hands, and I'll give odds that the D's will have a couple fewer Senators after the first Tuesday of November 2006. Remember that the Iraqi constitution will be over a year old by that election. Opposition to the war will be looking very unimaginative at that stage.

Third, Hillary's election will further her presidential ambitions, something for which all conservatives should sincerely hope.

Why?

Because she is completely unelectable nationally. Her political maneuverings are obvious, her speaking style and presence are barely tolerable, her command of others' loyalty is tenuous. She polls the highest negatives of any national figure since Newt Gingrich. All she has is the commitment of the mainstream Democratic party in the 21st century, the group with the least ability to elect a national candidate since the Whigs of the 1850s. As they've shown, they'll carry NY and the rest of the NE, along with the Pacific coast, states without serious, conservative Republican parties or constituencies. But that's not the sum of the republic, or even close to a majority.

So I'm indifferent to the 2006 NY Senate election. May it rest in peace, a peace from which Democrats won't consider party reform that might make them viable nationally.