And sixteen years from now, we’ll all have the opportunity to vote for the candidate with eight years of White House experience–Cindy McCain.

For eight of those years, the White House years, Hillary’s only job was First Lady, i.e., simply being a wife.

For twelve years, Hillary was a member of the Rose Law Firm at the same time that her husband was governor of Arkansas. It’s certainly true that in those years Hillary had a career, but her career hinged on the fact that her husband was governor. It was reported at the time (in Steve Brill’s publication “American Lawyer,” if I recall correctly) that Hillary would go to Arkansas companies that were already represented by counsel and tell them, “You need me as your lawyer.” Many such companies would pay Hillary’s firm a $50,000 a year retainer but continue to use the counsel they’d been using before. What Hillary was doing, to put it bluntly, was shaking down Arkansas companies that didn’t want to risk pissing off the governor.

Of course she also served as a corporate director on the board of Arkansas companies like Walmart. Why did Walmart want Hillary on its board–because she was so outstanding a businesswoman, because she had so much knowledge of retail sales, or because her husband was the governor? It’s pretty clear Hillary’s directorships came to her not because of Hillary herself but because of whose wife she was.

For seven years, Hillary has been junior senator from New York, after running for that job continuously for one year with no other career. This is legitimately regarded as seven years of actual career experience, but it’s at least worth noting that Hillary’s job as senator came to her because her husband had been President. Without that connection, Hillary wouldn’t have had a prayer of being senator from New York.

So let’s be honest about it. Most of Hillary’s 35 years of experience has been as wife to Bill Clinton, a role that brought her legal fees, directorships, and a senate seat, and all it demanded of her was that she turn a blind eye to her husband’s extramarital affairs. I’ll say this much for Hillary: she certainly understands that everything in life has a cost, and everyone has a price.

There’s nothing illegal about companies deciding to pay a retainer to the governor’s wife, so long as there’s no specific quid pro quo. But the point isn’t whether what Hillary did was illegal, but whether Hillary had a 35-year career that was, to use your words, “bigger than simply being a wife.”

If you want illegal, you’ll have to go back to the commodity trading of 1980 and the hiding of subpoenaed Rose Law Firm billing documents when Hillary was First Lady. But that’s all water under the bridge. The important thing now is that Hillary and Obama continue to battle it out until the convention, when the nomination can be decided by backroom deals and arm-twisting. What sport!