Poor Hillary was snubbed by Barack Obama. I suppose she thinks he
should have snubbed Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri instead. He
was closer to McCaskill then he was to Hillary who was, in any case,
already engaged in false pleasantries with Senator Kennedy. What's
more, Hillary is known to snub people all the time. In fact, she even
snubbed me once at a reception at the White House. I was talking to
someone in the Rose Garden, and she came over to greet the someone with
whom I was already chatting. That someone, in turn, introduced me,
saying, "Of course, you know Marty Peretz," which actually she did
not. I had never been in a room with Hillary that didn't also contain
a thousand other people. That didn't phase her at all. And she
responded, "Indeed, I do," and turned on her heel and left.
I don't have an explanation. Except that The New Republic was
not especially enamored of her health plan which, in retrospect, has
impeded health reform for a decade and a half. As it happens, we had
published a devastating analysis of the proposal by Elizabeth
McCaughey; and somehow, in the mysteries of Washington, this became the
vivid center of the debate. The White House actually put out what I
recall as a nine page rebuttal to the TNR critique, another tactical
mistake in the genius presidency. Anyway, it is to this article that her snub to me may be attributed. But it could be something even more petty.