BOXER TAKES ROUND 2 IN CONDI FIGHT.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

BACK in 2005, when Barbara Boxer last got into a high-profile spat with Condoleezza Rice, I chided the senator for taking the secretary of state's words out of context and assigning them ``the worst possible meaning.'' Two years later, it's now Boxer's words that are being distorted -- and Rice who deserves the chiding.

To hear Rice and others tell it, Boxer is a latent misogynist for suggesting during recent Senate hearings that Rice is unaffected by her Iraq war decisions because she -- being unmarried and childless -- has no family in harm's way.

``Who pays the price?'' Boxer asked Rice. ``I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with immediate family.''

Sensing the opportunity to play the identity-politics game that's usually the province of Democrats, Rice and fellow Republicans have gleefully responded by whipping out the feminist card.

``Gee, I thought single women had come further than that,'' Rice told Fox News, ``that the only question is are you making good decisions because you have kids?''

Now come on. Are we really to believe that Boxer -- a champion of unlimited abortion and gay activism -- thinks that only those with children are worthy of expressing an opinion? The senator has taken some extreme positions in her time, but an excessive deference to traditional gender and family roles is hardly one of them.

Still, the GOP pile-on continued.

``I do think it's outrageous,'' said White House spokesman Tony Snow. ``Here you got a professional woman, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Barbara Boxer is sort of throwing little jabs because Condi doesn't have children, as if that means that she doesn't understand the concerns of parents. Great leap backward for feminism.''

More like a great leap in Snow's logic.

Sadly, this is how our nation plays its destructive brand of gotcha politics -- smearing one's opponents on the basis of innuendo and distortion. This time Boxer is the target, although she similarly targeted Rice two years ago. Cheap politics is a wholly bipartisan affair.

But lost amid the overblown charges of sexism is real analysis of the plain meaning of Boxer's words -- namely, her risible suggestion that only those with a personal stake in an issue are qualified to weigh in on it.

This is an old chestnut of identity politics, trotted out in countless instances, such as whenever a white person offers a (negative) opinion on affirmative action, or a male questions the moral legitimacy of abortion. ``You wouldn't know,'' goes the inevitable rejoinder, as if none of us has any loved ones outside our narrow demographic band, let alone the powers of reason or empathy to think beyond our personal experiences.

This fallacious reasoning relieves those who employ it of actually answering their opponents' arguments, but it has a downside: It can also be used to weed just about anyone out of any debate.

No kids? Then you get no say on public education. Never worked on a farm? Then don't talk about agriculture subsidies. And don't even get started about banning smoking unless you've personally suffered through the agonies of nicotine addiction.

It's inane.

Take Boxer's insinuation that only military families can have an authentic take on the war. It's a nice sound bite -- assuming you believe that only military families grieve the loss of our soldiers -- but what does it prove? There are military families on both sides of the war debate; many align themselves with Boxer, and many others generally agree with Rice. So what?

Besides, as Boxer herself admitted: ``I'm not going to pay a personal price (in the war). My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young.''

So then is Boxer, a U.S. senator, unfit to offer an opinion on the war? Or are liberals exempt from the logical implications of identity politics?

Rice and Republicans should have simply denounced Boxer's comments for being senseless, which they were, instead of sexist, which they manifestly weren't. But instead of taking the high road, they saw the low road before them and jumped right on. Their hysterical reaction has made Boxer the relative voice of reason -- and thus the winner -- in this exchange.