A Tale of Two Tattles

The identification of the person who recorded Romney’s 47% statement marks the second time in recent years that an obscure citizen with no direct political influence may have directly altered history. George W. Bush would probably never have become president if Gore had run a slightly better campaign. One more state, any state, would have done the job. But he was overly concerned with proving to voters that he would never do to Tipper what Bill had done to Hillary. This scenario couldn’t have happened without someone playing the role of Monica Lewinsky. That’s about the end of the similarity between her and Scott Prouty, the person who we’ve just learned made the Romney tape.

Ms. Lewinsky was an essential part of the impeachment of President Clinton, in which her testimony, very personal to both, was essential to the success of an unprecedented partisan impeachment investigation. If perjury over marital fidelity is cause for dismissal from office, pretty much the way this sort of thing often has to be done, to what standard should other presidents be held, such as lying us into a major war?

But I digress. Mr. Prouty is a registered Independent who says he tends to vote Democratic. I concede the possibility that he may be more partisan than that. But he did nothing with his recording device that wasn’t being done openly by numerous guests, except that he didn’t pay fifty grand for the blue plate special.

Of course these two morality plays would never have taken place without the leading characters, Clinton and Romney. Strictly speaking both stories are tragedies, although barely so in Romney’s case and only because he did show definite signs of being human. The degree of tragedy depends on how much the leading character loses. By that measure Clinton’s story wins the award hands down.