Opinion: Hillary Clinton loses late-night joke contest to Eliot by one hooker story

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So, didja hear the dollar’s fallen so low Eliot Spitzer’s hookers are demanding payment in Euros? The governor’s prostitution sex scandal with the now-famous Kristen is the most embarrassing thing to hit New York since the Knicks.

He got a late start in the year for sure, but the now-ex-governor of New York has already surged to the overall lead in late-night jokes. According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a non-partisan, non-humorous study place, Spitzer’s extra-marital financial and sexual escapades vaulted him into the overall annual lead with 175 late-night jokes making fun of him.

But what is it about New York? That state’s Sen. Hillary Clinton is right behind Eliot with 174 jokes about her so far this year. The much-described but non-existent Bosnian snipers have been a godsend to Jay Leno and Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert and David Letterman to ....

fire jokes at her instead. We haven’t exactly minded, either. See videos here.

In case you’re keeping score, President Bush is third with 163 jokes on him, Sen. John McCain fourth with 140, Mitt Romney fifth with 123, Barack Obama sixth with 103, followed by two Arkansans, Bill Clinton with 59 and Mike Huckabee with 55, and then that hilarious Cuban Fidel Castro at 51. Tied for 10th with 41 are funnyman Roger Clemens and a laugh-riot named Ralph Nader.

What’s really impressive is that Spitzer acquired all 175 of his jokes totally within the month of March -- and still got way more than the combined total of all the wannabe presidents plus the real one that month.

Letterman was the leading Spitzer-mocker with 78, twice as many as Leno’s 39, who beat out Stewart (22), O’Brien (18) and Colbert (17).

Distance apparently makes the heart grow funnier. Leno’s favorite target from Burbank was New Yorker Clinton with 64 jokes so far this year. Stewart skewered her 43 times. Letterman only 28 (most of them surely involving pantsuits), Colbert 25 and O’Brien 15.

According to Letterman, when reporters asked Spitzer how much he paid Kristen an hour, the governor’s wife Silda interjected, ‘Believe me, he doesn’t need an hour.’

--Andrew Malcolm