I remember your Solis-Doyle profile, Ms. Cottle, and I don't seem to recall any mention of Clinton advisers pegging her as incompetent.  Were such statements made to you off the record?  If so, why's it okay to record them now?  

Michelle, I'm sure there is some reason journalists find a need, today, to remind us just how nasty  or inadequate Hillary Clinton was during the primary.  I can't think of any, but maybe you can enlighten me.   I can't see who this helps or how it helps, other than maybe the TNR blogs.  Or maybe the story makes people feel better about the impending, obvious outcome: that Obama will not chose her as VP.

Here's the thing, I'm sure she has learned from her mistakes and I'm also certain she is more than a "delusional" woman who ran an "inadequate" campaign and did "evil" things to Obama.  The narrative of her being deficient is not only tired, but inaccurate.  She has done more than what people expected to help out: she enthusiastically endorsed Obama after a heartbreaking effort and she is going to do even more for him.  This is very smart and politically gracious. Of course her work for him will help her, but it will also help all Democrats.  It would have been nice for you to end on that note.  I wrote at the Spine that people around here like to continue bashing her.  Your post fits this bill.

TammyA suggests that Hillary has learned from her mistakes, but I am not so sure. Hillary's campaign was marked by the same insularity, deafness, and hubris that brought down HillaryCare.  My impression is that Hillary's early campaign moves were a disaster that she only partly recovered from by playing the gender and race cards in an effort to build a case for 2012, at the expense of our 2008 nominee.

I generally refrain from bashing Hillary - now that she is gone - but if she is bashing Doyle, it is only fair to tell the rest of the story.  

Neil  

I don't understand the rhetoric of "free fall" in this case. This woman was hired to perform a very high profile job, her boss was not happy with her performance and fired her. This happens all the time. What does not happen all the time, and what therefore negates any talk of free fall, is that she was very quickly hired by another, even more influential and powerful politician to perform another significant job. Her new job is not as high profile as her old one, but she's not flipping burgers either. The woman has landed on her feet.  That she and Hillary haven't talked in a while does not seem  that strange. Sure, they used to be friends, but they went through a rough patch that is only a couple of months old. Wouldn't it be odder if they were already chumming around together? I fail to see what all the fuss is about.

Absolutely ridiculous Purcellneil, but then again you never could do anything but trash Hillary. That you still bring up the healthcare thing is evidence of your disrespect.  Democrats forget how "on-board" we all were with her efforts at the time and how honorable it was for her to have the courage to try to figure out one of the most complicated domestic policy issues of our lifetimes.  Point: she tried and tried hard and now gets asolutely no kudos for doing so.  Instead, peeps wanna trash her for it, in a sort of retrospective-bash that "disqualifies" her from office.  

And Neil, you regularly throw around the "playing the race and gender cards."  Do you think all claims about race and gender inequity  or unfairness are unfounded, or trivial pursuits or sinister ploys to secure an unjustified outcome?  Why don't you keep ignoring real inequality.  I wouldn't want you to lose any sleep at night.  

It is simple, really.  Like George Bush, Hillary values loyalty over competence.  Like Bush's administration, if not the charmed Bush himself, Hillary paid the price for her insularity.

And, it goes without saying that Hillary disowns the responsibility for her own behavior.  But I'm not bashing, just noting.  And reminding myself how relieved to tips of my toes that Hillary is not the Democratic candidate.  It sends a shiver down my spine to think that she might have been.

Tammy I am not that eager to bash Clinton, but in point of fact, the problems with her HillaryCare attempt weren't that 'she tried hard"- most people give her props for trying to tackle the issue. The problem, rather is the WAY she tried to solve it- not her proposed solution, but her approach to dealing with congressional foes and allies in trying to get it through. There were certainly echoes of that in her approach to the campaign. And she got LOTS of kudos for it- to the point that she was putatively seen as an expert on health care. And I agree with her policy positions, but if you can't get your policy position enacted, it's not worth nearly as much.

I don't think it's fair to focus too much on process, but we can't pretend that HOW she went about things didn't matter at all, particularly when we're talking about her management style and how it has or hasn't changed since then.

And yes, there was a lot of gender unfairness directed at Clinton, mainly from the press. But there was a lot of racial unfairness directed at Obama, coming from Clinton's campaign. in that context, her attemtps to paint Obama himself as a source of the bulk of the sexism was irresponsible and destructive. My opinion only of course, and I know we all have em.

propjoe, I would agree with your sentiments if Hillary's people didn't act so outraged that Obama hired her. Solis-Doyle was incompetent, but she wasn't disloyal. She didn't write a tell all book or trash Hillary, she simply took another job doing what she loves best. Honestly, was she supposed to remain unemployed forever as a kind of penance? She was fired, she owes no eternal loyalty to Hillary, if Hillary had simply demoted her into some kind of adviser position then Obama would never have had the chance to hire Doyle.

As to whether or not they are friends, or how long it will take before they talk again, I don't care. That is a private thing between the two of them.

That was a really nasty quote coming from Hillary, totally uncalled for.  If she's going to get this stuff out there, she needs to accept that people will dismantle the truth of it.  She probably does.

I never liked the term HillaryCare, it seemed condescending at the time and it still does.  She was given a job by the President and it didn't work out for lots of reasons, not just her.  

I hate when the NYT has these types of articles, picking at scabs for no good reason. Enough already.

Michelle,

You are the sorriest excuse for a "journalist" I've come across in a long time.  This whole "I don't feel sorry for Hillary" shtick certainly isn't surprising to hear now because you adequately displayed your biases all along.  I'm just a little shocked that you don't realize this yourself.  Are you even slightly ashamed of your deportment throughout this campaign?  

I simply don't know how you can even claim -- with a straight face -- any semblance of objectivity when you so clearly and unmistakably sold your journalistic integrity to the Obama campaign ages ago.  This situation, for you, is literally pathetic:  worthy of nothing but pity.  What must it feel like to know that in your chosen profession, your actions have made you wholly unremarkable and embarrassing?  Without a stunning change of behavior on your part, your career will never rise above mediocre.

But hey...  In the echo chamber that is TNR, I'm sure you've been made to feel like a champ.  

I had almost forgotten Hillary Clinton ever existed.

Ahhhh.

What a wonderful feeling.

Aeromonas hit it right on the head. I went back and read Ms. Cottle's profile of Solis Doyle (The Enforcer) and there's narry a mention of anyone telling Hillary that she is not up to the job. So, maybe Ms. Cottle got this intelligence AFTER her profile. Or maybe she is just passing along the kind of second guessing and rewriting history that happens after a failed candidacy.

Either way, this comes off as just another excuse to bash Hillary -- as if TNR ever needed an excuse! Heck, Hillary didn't even trash Solis Doyle. The Washington Post reported that Hillary has told someone something. But it's not as if Hillary is out there trashing Solis Doyle.

TNR and its editors need to get over it. Obama won. Hillary lost. TNR got its candidate. Move on.

Bear Bryant once said, "If something goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win for you."

That's all you need to know to understand why Hillary lost.  As far as all the disrespect being directed toward Hillary, from where I'm sitting it seems to me like she's earned it.  

I think roidubouloi hits the nail on the head: Hillary hired and promoted Patti, valuing loyalty above competence or excellence. As any CEO knows, the failure is not Patti's but Hillary's. Hillary will not grow until she accepts responsibility instead of the blaming that was a constant and quite tiresome theme of her campaign.

In fact, she continues to place loyalty above competetence, proving that she has not learned. Listen to her most devoted surrogate Mr. Lanny Davis even today. For most Americans, if Lanny says A, we know the answer must be B, C. or D, for he is a man without credibility except to the True Believers in Hillary. He would back off with one word from Hillary. But since he is a loyalist fighting for her, that would will never come unless there is a disaster.

I would note that I was both a supporter and donor to Hillary until Bill's comments in SC.

And don't forget, if Obama loses, it's Hillary's fault for staying in the primary too long!

I dunno -- I don't care how much Patti Solis-Doyle felt like a "scapegoat" when she was demoted from campaign director of a losing campaign -- given how much Hillary Clinton had done for her since, zeesh, 1992?, you think she couldhave declined a role in the Obama campaign. I disagree with blackton that loyalty = not writing a tell-all, though I can hardly blame anyone for setting the standard that low given all the tell-alls out there.