Surely you've seen this by now in the New York Post:

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over Iraq about as low as it can go -- attacking Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman....

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."

Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

Breathtaking.

Simply breathtaking.

We scarcely know where to begin.

A number of righties have made comparisons like this:

I don’t recall the lack of fruit from Janet Reno's womb figuring heavily into scrutiny of Waco or l'affaire Elian, but that was a different time.

No, but of course we did have this in 1998:

Earlier this month, at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.

...When McCain subsequently apologized to President Clinton, the Washington Post, in its personality section, noted the apology but said the joke "was too vicious to print."

... this is what he reportedly said:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

OK, let's compare and contrast.

Boxer's remark: uttered by a sitting senator.
McCain's remark: uttered by a sitting senator.

Boxer's remark: notes the fact that Rice isn't a mother and concludes she isn't a mother.
McCain's remark: notes that Reno isn't a mother and concludes that she's a freak of nature.

Boxer's remark: on the front page of the New York Post and denounced by the spokesman for the president of the United States.
McCain's remark: alluded to in a few back-page print news stories and opinion pieces, many of which fail to tell what the joke was.

*****

Oh, and by the way, Reno's childlessness was made an issue during the Elian Gonzalez affair by Elian's cousin Marisleysis. Here she is on CNN just after the raid in which Elian was seized from the Miami relatives:

And you know what, Janet Reno? Even though if it would have been three minutes or 30 seconds, it happened. And the harm was done, and it was done to a kid that's been through a lot. And you still don't know what being a mother is.

Yeah, Marisleysis and the rest of the Miami relatives were a national joke -- though not among many right-wingers, who rooted for them to get custody of Elian.