Fred and Bill

The parallels between Death Row inmate Frederick Baer and a certain sociopathic ex-President are quite striking. I'd like to point a few of them out.

Both men like to pose with pets to show what nice, affectionate people they are:

As Gethin pointed out after the last post, Baer kept saying in that interview that he "deserved to die -- according to the laws governing the state of Indiana." This lawyerly qualification implies that he only deserves his sentence in the strictly legal sense, not in any larger moral sense.

Baer's choice of words is reminiscent of how Clinton parsed the definition of the words "sex" and "is" during his Monica Lewinsky deposition.

When Baer said that he cried when a butterfly hit the windshield of his car because he was so soft and sentimental, he was trying to convince us of his empathy. Just as Bill Clinton was when he said, "I feel your pain."

Baer was a serial rapist before he murdered that 24-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter. Clinton, too, was a serial rapist. His victims included Juanita Broaddrick, Eileen Wellstone,  Elizabeth Ward, and an unnamed 22-year-old student at Yale.

Baer was successful as a serial rapist because he was able to talk his way into his victim's houses with a pack of lies. Clinton talked himself into the White House using similar tactics.

Baer had a meth habit. Clinton reportedly had a cocaine habit when he was governor of Arkansas.

Both men were raised by an alcoholic mother.

The only differences between Baer and Clinton were IQ and circumstance. Not character.

Baer was probably not smart -- or sly -- enough to have ended up a successful politician. But Clinton might easily have ended up somewhere far less glamorous than the White House.