Not yet ready for prime time. That's the only conclusion I can make about the comments of New York's  Republican candidate for the Senate. The New York Daily News reports,

Hillary Clinton's Republican challenger is getting personal and it's not pretty: He says the senator used to be ugly — and speculates she got "millions of dollars" in plastic surgery.

"You ever see a picture of her back then? Whew," said John Spencer of Clinton's younger days.

"I don't know why Bill married her," he said of the Clintons, who celebrated their 31st anniversary this month.

Noting Hillary Clinton looks much different now, he chalked it up to "millions of dollars" of "work" — plastic surgery.

"She looks good now," he said.

Spencer's bizarre comments came during a conversation with a reporter seated beside him and his wife, Kathy, on the 10:30 a.m. JetBlue flight Friday to Rochester, the site of the race's first debate.

Perhaps Spencer has concluded that he isn't going to win, so he might as well do as much damage as possible to the Senator, looking forward to her run for the Presidency. But such mean—spirited comments on looks will do her no harm and him no good.

Anyone who takes a close look at Senator Clinton's changing facial landscape over the years must conclude that some kind of seismic forces have been at work. And those of us who noticed the differences before and after she went on an extended journey to Africa with her daughter, during which she often wore veils and was never photographed in a close—up, concluded that she was healing the scars of extensive facial plastic surgery.

As a celebrity, Senator Clinton is subject to such speculation. That is one thing. But for a rival candidate to refer to her younger visage with such contempt is counter—productive. God—given looks are not a political issue, though plastic surgery is not quite in the same category.

Hat tip: Joe Crowley

Thomas Lifson   10 23 06