The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

The Clintons' His-and-Hers Checkbooks

Emily Y. makes a great point about the risks involved in sharing a joint tax return with Bill Clinton; I had an off-the-record chat with the charming Kazakh dictator once, and there is zero chance Clinton did not know he was dealing with a complete thug. The guy is like something out of an animated version of The Sopranos.

So, the Clintons keep two houses and two checkbooks—and this $5 million loan to the campaign does come out of her account, according to the campaign, as it would have to, under the law. But their careers and finances seem impossible to divide into his and hers. (Would she have gotten an $8 million advance for her revisionist, group-written memoir, Living History, if her hubby hadn't been president? No. Then again, would he have ever been president if she hadn't been with him? Maybe not. And so on ...) They are absolutely inseparable as a political force—a fact that, more than her gender, her vote to authorize the war in Iraq, or her role in scandals past, has got to be the question facing her campaign.

Which led me into this recent argument with my own other half: I say Al Gore's widely derided decision to sideline Bill in 2000 is looking smarter and smarter in retrospect; he argues that my favorite Nobel-winner would be finishing up his second term if only he hadn't indulged his post-Monica anger toward Bill. Thoughts? (So I can pass on only those in full agreement with me ...)