Vintage Clinton

Just read this:

If Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro decides to run against Senator Hillary Clinton next year, Clinton's backers are vowing to make Mr. Pirro's personal life a major campaign issue.

"How can we not bring it up?" a well-known Democratic consultant told the New York Post on Monday, referring to Albert Pirro's past conviction on tax evasion and an alleged association with a mob figure.

What about Mr. Clinton's record as the only elected president ever impeached, after an investigation that uncovered everything from Oval Office sex with a 23-year-old intern to an alleged rape of a campaign worker?

A prominent Democrat with close ties to Senator Clinton told the Post that despite his tawdry past, "Bill Clinton is the most popular political figure in New York and he can appear as a surrogate for his wife in any part of the state. [my emphasis]

Boy, doesn't that sum up the Clinton mystique? "We'll punch you in the groin until your testicles are the size of honeydew melons, but don't you dare even look cross-eyed at our belt buckle, and if you do it won't matter because everybody loves us anyway, and will hate you when we get finished with you."

"Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can; but you'll never catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man."

Yeah - armed with twin Uzis.

This, to remind once again all the nervous Nellies who couldn't slavishly denounce The Truth About Hillary fast enough, is why purported "smears" of the Clintons don't bat so much as a single one of my eyelashes. They're the ones who, as a matter of standard operating procedure, engage in the "politics of personal destruction" - they, if you will, "wrote the book on it," - and I've always believed in the ethic that you ask no quarter you do not grant. Since they don't hesitate to smear their foes, massive like-kind retaliation is perfectly fair game.

Like-kind retaliation (or even pre-emptive strikes, like the Klein book) simply does not manifest itself as a practical reality because the Clinton machine is bigger, better, and badder at politics as bloodsport than any other individual or group could ever dream of being.

And so, while the couple that itself had documented mob ties points that very finger at a potential fledgling GOP challenger that Hillary could squash like a bug on a tractor-trailer-truck windshield while spending the entire '06 campaign in an induced coma, the woman who would be Queen is spending her days worming her way to George Bush's right on his signature issue via the backdoor of his biggest vulnerability:

"The Bush Administration is failing to meet what should be the basic requirements of immigration policy: continuing our American tradition of welcoming immigrants who follow the rules and are trying to build a better life for their families, while strengthening national security in a post 9-11 world.

"Our current immigration laws need to be reformed," she urges. "We need a better solution to the question of illegal immigration which recognizes the conflict between the need to enforce the law, and the reality that too many employers are using undocumented workers today."

Clinton says that while "this Administration has failed to provide the resources to protect our borders, or a better system to keep track of entrants to this country ... I welcome the addition of more border security."

She pins blame for the failure directly on the Oval Office, saying, "President Bush refused to provide the necessary funding in his Fiscal Year 2006 proposed budget sufficient to hire all of the border patrol agents that had been authorized."

"Fortunately," Clinton adds, "during the Senate’s debate on the budget in March of 2005, we passed an amendment to provide increased funding for border patrol agents."

Sure, she's a phony; sure, she doesn't mean any of it; sure, it's a purely defensive mentality, waiting for the Islamists to infiltrate our homeland instead of keeping them engaged and on the run in theirs.

But if there's another big terrorist attack, do you really think this positioning won't pay her big-time political dividends? Or that the Clinton machine wouldn't use such an event to smear whoever emerges with the '08 GOP nomination as an "accessory to criminal negligence" - in addition to the usual personal smears as well?

What amazes me about my side of the aisle is its incoherence where Hillary Clinton is concerned. Some are afraid to even challenge her, while others take her not just lightly, but dismiss her altogether. Which goes to show the wisdom of the old adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Meanwhile, for all this flitting about, here I am occupying the same ground I always have, urging that we not shrink from engaging the Clintons on their no-holds-barred terms but warning that Mrs. Clinton will be profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to defeat, largely because of the very incoherence cited above.

She's not at all difficult to figure out; we just have to be willing to accept the answer, and ruthlessly act upon it.

And ruthlessness is not a Republican trait.