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Ah, Hillary. It's the joke heard across the world and now the jokester is being psychoanalyzed by reporters and bloggers alike.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, following campaigning in Iowa, is laying on the proverbial psychiatrist's couch after responding to the question of what in her background has prepared her to deal with "evil and bad men." In response, Clinton, considered the Democratic frontrunner for president, didn't say anything, but she did smile, raise her eyebrows and nod, which garnered laughs and applause for 31.4 seconds ... yes, an enterprising reporter counted.

Sen. Clinton's response had every Iowan and reporter present wondering if she was referring to her husband Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

"She was talking about Bill being a bad man. There was no doubt whatsoever. That was good," said Tyrone Williams, 55, an Iowa engineer to the New York Post.

"Oh, come on. I don't think anybody in there thought that. I thought it was funny. You know, [reporters] keep telling me, 'Lighten up. Be funny.' You know, I get a little funny and now I'm being psychoanalyzed," Sen. Clinton said.

So let the psychoanalyzing continue:

Blogger James Joyner on Outside the Beltway says Sen. Clinton demonstrated weak character with her quip similar to when Al Gore allegedly said he invented the Internet before his run for president.

"Denying that it was at her husband's expense is characteristic of another man she's trying to follow, 2000 nominee Al Gore, who displayed a bizarre need to lie about trivial things," writes Joyner. "It makes no sense and undermines not only her credibility but her attempt to humanize herself with the public by being funny."

The Politico's Ben Smith goes further with his psychoanalysis, suggesting that Sen. Clinton's joke reveals her belief in a right-wing conspiracy to destroy herself and her husband.

"Her joke suggests that she buys into the notion that American and Middle Eastern 'zealots' are cut from the same cloth, an idea that dovetails with her belief that there was (and is) a right-wing conspiracy to destroy the Clintons," writes Smith.

But Ezra Klein, a blogger on The American Prospect, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post both wrote that the media's focus on the joke puts Clinton between a rock and a hard place and overshadows her demand that President Bush bring home Iraqi troops by the end of his term in office.

"If she seeks moments of humor or spontaneity, the press will devolve into endless psychoanalyses ... If she doesn't, they'll repeatedly bemoan her lack of authenticity," writes Klein. "I'm really loathe to let the press cheapen and demean our political discourse with a reprise of the mid-90s, but nor am I willing to write Clinton off because [The New York Times] won't give her a fair shake."

The New York Post quoted Sen. Clinton demanding the troops come home: "This was [Bush's] decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy," Clinton said while in Iowa. "We expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office."

Blogger Taylor Marsh, however, tempers the partisan psychobabble through her market analysis of Clinton's quip, suggesting it was a moment "with the girls" designed to build bridges between Clinton and female voters.

"She may be having a moment with the girls," writes Marsh. "What woman hasn't been wronged by a man, sometimes more than once without leaving? I find it interesting that people completely dismiss the notion that HRC [Clinton] was talking about Bill. Just think if she manages to disarm the women she meets; what a boon to her campaign it will be. In fact, it's not a bad strategy if you think about it and also deals with a topic that many women still wonder about but would never ask her directly."

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