Watching Eliot Spitzer's press conference while his helpless wife looked on, one can't help but ask why powerful men all too often engage in reckless activity that can destroy their lives, their families, their reputations, and their political accomplishments. In the end, Bill Clinton gave one answer: "Because I could".
At 61, one has to assume that Bill "still can", perhaps with a Viagra assist. Clinton has always been a man of large appetites, for better and for worse. It's doubtful that his life as a sexually active male is over. And given his long history, one has to wonder if his sexual needs can be filled only by Hillary off on the campaign trail and his own left hand.
I'm not making moral judgments here. I don't care what the Clintons do or don't do in private. Many couples make spoken and unspoken arrangements to deal with infidelity. Millions of husbands forgive their wives and millions of wives forgive their husbands their infidelities in order to keep their families intact. If Hillary chose to stay with Bill through all the scandals to preserve her family and her chances to run for president, I don't personally begrudge her that decision.
But public revelations of Bill Clinton's private infidelities largely destroyed his ability to be an effective president during his second term, harmed the Democratic Party, and contributed to Al Gore losing the Presidency to George Bush, leaving us with the nightmare of the past 7 hears.
During the long campaign, Bill and Hillary rarely spend a night in the same city. Does Bill spend all those nights alone? (Obama makes a point of regularly returning to Chicago during the campaign to spend time with his family.)
Hillary will have a hard enough time defeating McCain if she wrests the nomination in a divisive Democratic Convention. Given the Clinton's history, one cannot discount the possibility of another Bill Clinton "bimbo eruption" in the middle of the presidential campaign. What would become of Hillary's chances if, during the campaign, she had to react to such public revelations and once again be forced to decide in public whether stand by her man or leave him?
I don't personally care whether Bill is unfaithful in private or whether he and Hillary have an arrangement that allows it. (And before readers accuse me of misogyny, this is not about gender. A male candidate having to publicly account for his wife's infidelity in the middle of a presidential campaign would be little better.) If Bill is still unfaithful and it becomes public during the campaign, it could that be the last straw that hands the White House to John McCain, prolongs the war in Iraq, extends tax cuts for the wealthy in the middle of a war and recession, and irrevocably hands an insurmountable majority on the Supreme court to conservatives for a generation?
And if Hillary does manage to get elected without a bimbo eruption during the campaign, what happens if there's a bimbo eruption after she becomes president? Would she throw Bill out of the (White) house? Would the nation have to live through the psychodrama of a presidential divorce? Would she yet again stand by her man? Most importantly, would such events cripple a Hillary Clinton presidency the way it crippled Bill Clinton's presidency and keep Hillary from implementing the "real solutions" that she promises?
Can Democrats take that chance?