Everything You Thought About Mark Penn Is True, And More
The Washington Post really outdid itself today -- cheers to the Washington Post ! In a long feature , we learn that all of the various Evil Clinton Advisers hate each other, but they mostly just hate Mark Penn, a.k.a. the Lizard King Bowser. Everything you thought was happening in Clinton's camp is fully confirmed, which somehow makes it less true.
Everything is Mark Penn's fault, and no one likes him, but BILLARY supports him, so it truly is a Triumvirate of Lizard Monsters:
"I think about all camps think it's Mark's fault," said a Clinton White House veteran close to the campaign. "I don't think there is a Mark camp." Another person who has advised the senator from New York said: "Penn should have been let go. He failed the campaign in developing a message and evolving the message as things changed."
But there is a Penn camp, however small, that believes in his message of strength, experience, and fear of recession and crisis -- and its most important members are Bill and Hillary Clinton. Three times, campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and senior adviser Harold Ickes tried to hire another national pollster so Penn would not be the one to test his own message, campaign sources said, and three times they were rejected. When the candidate forced out Solis Doyle last month after a string of defeats, the departing manager said Penn should also be fired, to no avail, sources said.
It even reached the point of "[Expletive] you!" between Penn and Harold Ickes . We don't know what the Post 's current style guide is, so may it's "[I wish to be friends and make watercolors of rainbows and ride ponies with] you!" See, this could just be a sex thing, as most things are:
Penn was growing increasingly aggravated by what he saw as an untenable management structure, which another aide described as an "oligarchy at the top." Penn had no real people of his own on the inside and chafed whenever Solis Doyle or Ickes got involved in his sphere. At one point, he and Ickes, who have been battling each other within the Clinton orbit for a dozen years, lost their tempers during a conference call, according to two participants.
"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted.
"[Expletive] you!" Penn replied.
"[Expletive] you!" Ickes shouted again.
Meanwhile, Obama's advisers have never disagreed.