Howard Fineman's column today brought the title question to mind. It is one that I have asked myself several times.

Fineman leads off:

Iowa Republicans will tell you that the Devil does not wear Prada; she wears a pantsuit, low-heeled shoes and a sunny, I-told-you-so smile. Karl Rove insists that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a "fatally flawed candidate," and many Democrats agree. In a new book, "The Neglected Voter," journalist David Kuhn charts the party's waning appeal among white men--a debilitating trend Clinton seems ill-suited to reverse. But Iowans aren't reassured by Rove or flow charts. They assume Clinton will be the nominee, and, with typical earnestness, are searching for the right Saint George to take on the dragon lady. "We have a healthy appreciation for her and what she would represent, which is a hard turn to the left," says Robert Haus, a local GOP media consultant. "The goal of preventing that is what unites us."

Many people on the right see Hillary (and, of course, Bill) as devils. A Google search of "Hillary Clinton devil" yielded 1.25 million hits. Wow.

This word choice is interesting to me. The "devil" is the great deceiver of humanity, after all. He is the snake in the garden who sweet-talked Adam and Eve into having a bite of that juicy red apple. This is why he is so fearful. He talks us into doing stuff that we know not to do.

The word fits in the right's general orientation to the Clintons. The right does not view them as they view other opponents, e.g. Kerry or Gore. Their attitude toward the Clintons is different. They are afraid of the Clintons - for the same reason one should be afraid of the devil. The devil works a power upon humanity that humanity does not understand, cannot predict, and certainly cannot defend against. The right sees the Clintons similarly, I think. They do not not understand the effect they have had on the nation, and they have never been able to counteract it.

The Clinton "shtick" never worked on the right, which always "saw right through it." It was obvious to the right from all the way back in 1992 that the Clintons were not worthy of the office. And yet, despite the right's best efforts, the Clintons beat the elder Bush. In 1996 (or at least in 1995), the right was convinced they finally had the Clintons' number. They had raised taxes, tried to socialize medicine, and so on. 1994, the right thought, was a harbinger of the Clintons' electoral doom. Nope. Clinton won handily. Finally, in 1998 the right was convinced that they had them. The Lewinsky affair would surely end their reign, they thought. Again, no way. Lewinsky brought down Gingrich, not Clinton!

Every time, the right has been left scratching its head and wondering, "How in the hell did they beat us again?!" They've never had a good answer to the question. Oh sure, the right can look at exit polling data and assess that Clinton did well with white suburban female voters, or whatever. They can see how it all fits on paper. What they can't see is how anybody would be persuaded by them, how the nation never seems to see through the Clintons as the right does. That's the major difference between the Clintons and other political opponents of the right. The right has "seen through" the Clintons for 15 years. Not only has the rest of the country not seen through them, they have not done so despite the right's best efforts to elucidate matters for the public.

The right knows that the Clintons have an effect on the nation, but they do not fully understand the effect, and they sure as heck have not figured out how to deal with it. And so, the Clintons are like the devil for the right. This time, the right thinks, we'll be ready. We know what they did last time, and it won't happen again! But, of course, it happens again...and again...and again. That's what the devil does. He deceives you, even when you think you're ready for his deception. This is what makes him so fearful. He's a mystery.

For the right, so also are the Clintons.