Something has been nagging me about Chelsea Clinton's Lewinsky moment at Butler University. As we all know by now from the infinite news loop, a young man asked her if her mother's credibility had been damaged during the Monica Lewinsky scandal - as in dad was getting busy with interns while she was supposed to be a veritable co-president.
Her reply, again as we all know, was that nobody had ever asked her that before and "I do not think any of that is your business." There were a lot tougher questions to ask in this matter. But the reply had a brilliant precision to it: Imply the young man is slime without saying it, show the hurt, and evade the question.
Then the young man, looking like he came straight from a Nixon-era Young Republicans meeting, jumped into the loop himself, and spent the next two days explaining why he asked the question, but mainly praising Hillary Clinton.
Isn't this all a little too perfect?
I've thought for quite a while the whole Lewinsky thing was going to flow into the campaign like a backed-up sewer drain. The man who is Hillary Clinton's campaigner in chief, let's not forget, is a serial hound dog who abused the trust of parents who sent their daughter to a government internship program, took advantage of a whifty 22 year old, lied to to a grand jury, lied to us, and came within a party-line vote of losing his job.
You can talk about an overzealous prosecutor. You can talk about "vast right-wing conspiracies." But the inconvenient truth is that our man did it.
Sooner or later, the husband of the candidate - the guy out scolding the press for being unfair and Obama for weaving fairy tales - is going to have to revisit one of the most painful periods of presidential history.
To the extent that a Hillary Clinton win would create a co-presidency - which it clearly would - the events, decisions, and delusions of the days of Monica, Paula, and how many other women (former Dick Morris says hundreds) that received gubernatorial and presidential attentions should be part of the campaign dialogue.
And they will.
The more Hillary Clinton touts her time in the White House as being co-joined with the leader of the free world, the closer history pulls her to a vortex of questions about judgment, denial, cover-up, and convenient - maybe cynical - acquiescence: he gets his playtime; I get a shot at my dream job.
Unless:
You take the small pox approach: inoculate with dead cells so the live ones won't kill you. Raise it with Chelsea - nobody wants the kids to suffer because dad has tear-away pants - in a college setting with a non-threatening questioner. And get this: you can then put the kid on TV (make sure he has a nice haircut and a collared shirt) and have him praise Hillary. Nobody gets hurt.
The payoff is that the next insensitive bastard to bring up the Lewinsky trauma isn't raising a political issue. He is stirring up painful family memories for a very likable and accomplished young lady.
Am I giving this campaign too much credit? Or not enough?
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