Wonkette
For the last few days, the folks at the Atlantic magazine have been hyping a piece from senior editor Joshua Green about the (not so) mysterious inner workings of Hillary Clinton’s terrible campaign staff, claiming Green had procured 200(!) internal e-mails and memos. Such teases! This is sort of like waving crack in front of John Edwards’ crack baby, but then saying “you have to wait for the September issue of crack to come out in three days.” But it’s out now, and we read it, and there’s not much you haven’t already known for months or couldn’t have predicted. It has its moments, however. Wait until you read about Mark Penn’s “FUN” invisible people button for the website!
Of course most of the hilarious bits involve chief strategist Mark “Bowser” Penn, the worst human being on earth, ever. Early in the campaign he “welcomed” other, less battle-proven staffers by, you know, intimidating them with creepy silver death bowls:
In light of this history, he got off to an inauspicious start when Clinton entered the race in January 2007, by demanding the title “chief strategist” (previously he had been one of several “senior advisers”) and presenting each of his senior colleagues with a silver bowl inscribed with the words of Horace Mann: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
Penn strongly urged the campaign to go after, you guessed it, Obama’s “lack of American roots.” Hawaii, Indonesia, you know… The BLACKNESS maybe… NO THAT WAS A JOKE! Ha ha, eh…
Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds.
And of course, Mark Penn’s awesome Internet strategy: IT WILL BE FUN. HILLARY’S WEBSITE WILL BE FUN AND HUMANS WILL ENJOY IT OR DIE.
He also seemed cognizant of the growing power of the Web, and, straining for hipness, took at a stab at brainstorming a “viral” strategy:
I CAN BE PRESIDENT. This idea has potential for a viral campaign among moms—it is about your sons and your daughters believing that they too can be president. Your success paves the way for them … We are making a video with celebrities to launch this program in a FUN way, with great clips from kids and from celebrities saying what they would do if president.
Once again, he returned to the “Invisible Americans”:
Invisibles—need to use this as a creative vehicle to involve people—This can be a cool button where people appear/disappear. Mandy is working on an early spot that would give this some drama to the idea that it’s the people’s turn to be seen again.
Oh man, did they ever do this button thing? Can anyone find an operational URL if so? WE WANT TO HAVE FUN WITH IT.
This next bit is kind of sad. First they couldn’t bribe the journalists at dinner, and then they were “mocked for weeks” for attacking a 5-year-old Obama. (Actually nevermind, they DID bribe the journalists at dinner because they won the Register’s endorsement. And no one cared and then she was “mocked for weeks.”)
On December 1, Clinton and her husband attended a private dinner with the influential Des Moines Register editorial board. Seated at opposite ends of a long table, they were stunned to hear journalists praise the skill and efficiency of the Obama and Edwards campaigns and question why Clinton’s own operation was so passive.
On the next morning’s staff conference call, Clinton exploded, demanding to know why the campaign wasn’t on the attack. Solis Doyle was put on a plane to Iowa the next day to oversee the closing weeks. Within hours of the call, the panicked staff produced a blistering attack on Obama for what it characterized as evidence of his overweening lust for power: he had written a kindergarten essay titled “I Want to Become President.” The campaign was mocked for weeks.
You know who never got quite enough credit as an asshole? Phil Singer. All the journalists hated that asshole — you’ll see why shortly — and yet his public asshole reputation never quite reached the level of, say, everyone else working for Clinton:
On February 10, Clinton finally fired Solis Doyle and moved Williams in—but did not heed calls to fire Penn, enraging Solis Doyle’s many loyalists. At this crucial point, long-simmering feuds burst into the open. On February 11, Williams’s first day on the job, Phil Singer, Wolfson’s deputy and a man notorious for his tirades at reporters, blew up in Wolfson’s office and screamed obscenities at his boss before throwing open the door to direct his ire at the campaign’s policy director, Neera Tanden, an ally of Solis Doyle. “Fuck you and the whole fucking cabal!” he shouted, according to several Clinton staffers. In the end, he climbed onto a chair and screamed at the entire staff before storming out.
And then Robert Barnett — an old pal of Bill’s — was like “I hate you all, forever” in an e-mail to senior staffers after that awesome Peter Baker/Anne Kornblut story (the one that was like Joshua Green’s, but… months earlier):
STOP IT!!!! I have help [sic] my tongue for weeks. After this morning’s WP story, no longer. This makes me sick. This circularfiring squad that is occurring is unattractive, unprofessional, unconscionable, and unacceptable … It must stop.
Barnett also cross-posted this as a comment on an AOL message board. OK maybe not.
These people aren’t all nuts, though, it seems after reading this. Hillary was just such a frontrunner, with so many advantages, that each of her top advisers was going out of his or her mind 24 hours a day not wanting to be the one that blew it. As a result they just fought all the time, these very smart individuals, and ended up blowing it as a team. And that’s quite an achievement.
The Front-Runner’s Fall [The Atlantic]
Wow. When’s Penn getting the “Full Metal Jacket” treatment?
…I really wish someone would pour some salt on that slug Mark Penn!
If only they listened to Huma.
Candy Crowley is talking about how much of a bitter Barry must be after seeing this. CNN is the bestest.
…after reading this I really think Hillary could have made all of her campaign money(and then some) back! She should have had an entire fukking camera crew following her and her campaign staff around 24 hours a day like a reality show. Everyone loves to watch a train wreck, I damn well know I would pay to see this campaign cannibalize itself like some kind flesh eating bacteria!
SuperRounder: …Mark Penn should get the “Reservoir Dogs” or “Hannibal” treatment!
That picture cries out for a mouseover.
weirdiowasculpture: oh fine.
Hillary, we hardly knew ye.
Your first clue that your idea is not FUN is when you have to describe it as such using all-caps….
AngryBlakGuy: I go to sleep every night thanking the gods for Mark Penn. Where would we be now without him?
Jim Newell: Much better, thank you.
Robert Barnett’s email sort of reminds of the time I went into a McDonald’s where the whole staff was just at insane levels of incompetence (even by McDonald’s standards) and while they were all shuffling around like morons, screwing up everyone’s orders very slowly, the manager came running out of wherever he was hiding and shouted (in full view of all the customers) “Guys! You’re not working as a TEAM! We need more TEAMWORK!!” and then ran back to wherever he had come from, and none of the other employees looked at him or acknowledged what he had said in any way. It was actually kind of beautiful.
What’s that? Penn tried to create a campaign for a new American Century? Or was it a Project for a New American Century?
Hmm.
Gopherit v2.0: Without him, maybe with Hillz as the presumptive nominee.
So thank Kaluannuunohonionio for accepting our human sacrifices on behalf of Hawaiian soldier of blood and 3-pointers.
mark penn should team up with fred and george and open a majicke shoppe with invisible buttons and instant swamps and exploding fireworks of poo.
wait. we already have that.
And they stalked Monica Lewinsky. I literally don’t have a joke to top that fact.
I wonder how many of those e-mails were receipts for Mark Penn’s online orders from Pizza Hut?
Delicious: Huma?
The Incomparable Tiny Valdez: Not so, my friend. Darth Hillary lives! Just wait until the convention! Penn will get all the Hilltardz hopped up on steroids and crack, then turn them loose on the unsuspecting Obama delegates. Hillary will take a flame-thrower to Bubba, then Penn will chop up the body into small pieces and sell them as souvenirs, all the while screaming, “Hopey is a foreigner! America for Americans! One white nation under one white God!”
Thanks, Jim. I’m glad I didn’t have to read through that boring shit.
Sweet. We’ll bring them all back together again for Surreal Live v. 29 and watch as they gouge out each other’s eyes with sporks and midgets.
My Gawd Jim what are you on and can I have some? Excellent work. But as an invisible person, I would like to welcome Mark Penn.
I have to agree with Mark Penn here. A button that could turn people invisible (and, hopefully, inaudible) would certainly make my workday more “FUN”.
I guess the Atlantic didn’t find the e-mails calling for a search of frontrunners assassinated in August.
I’m starting to understand Patty Solis Doyle. If I had worked in that place, I’d probably end up shutting my door and watching soap operas* all day long, too.
–
* That’s another euphemism for pr0n, right?
“This circularfiring squad that is occurring is unattractive, unprofessional, unconscionable, and unacceptable …”
This bad writing that is currently now in the process of happening is not good, kind of bad, a thousand times worse than the Holocaust, maybe could use a little improvement….
Is that a picture of Hillz’s puppet from the “Land of Confusion” video?
Oh, hell, now I done gone and dated myself in the name of snark…
I’m all for cruel pics of self-important gasbags, but sweet bleeding Jeebus, that picture of Hilz is too harsh.
never sleep again… never sleep again… never sleep again…
Delicious: Exactly. They should have listened to Huma and based the whole campaign on Fisting.
“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
Yeah, because on my deathbed the foremost thing on my mind is going to be whether or not I’m ashamed of something.
On the other hand, if Mark Penn believes this, he will live forever.
Sounds like ‘the invisibles’ is the new ‘the bitters’. Even though I don’t really understand what the concept was.
slavojzizek: Nobody understands it, because we’re dumb. Billary understands it, Billary went to Yale.
Literal literary proof that these people had no self-awareness, no clue what was transpiring on the ground beneath them, and no idea they faced actual opponents.
You want to know why Hillz’ campaign crashed and burned? Here’s an example of her stellar brain trust and how they still don’t get what transpired:
Howie Wolfson now rags on about John Edwards having stolen the nom from Hillz by not announcing his fornication before Iowa. Because 2/3 of those Edwards people would have gone to Hillz, sez Howie, because “they’re the same people.”
Only problem is that Iowa Dem protocols require the collecting of each voter’s second choice, and the overwhelming majority of second choices were cast for Obama.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/why-howard-wolfson-is-out-of-job.html
It is bad enough that Wolfson didn’t know that then, but he insists upon parading his own ignorance eight months after the fact. They couldn’t come up with a cogent reason to vote for Hillz back then, and they still haven’t come up with the reason why she lost, all these months later.
Can you imagine how fucked up the Hillz White House woulda been??? Penn and Wolfson and Ickes all in strategic roles, all telling each other to fuck off and pass the donuts all the time? With Bubba whispering in the Queen’s ear?
Today when asked about the rift between Russia and Georgia, Hillz declared: “The Caucusus have always been unfair and undemocratic and shouldn’t count.”
Teamwork - because none of us is as stupid as all of us.
Maybe all these nimrods just knew in the back of their minds that Clinton was a horrible candidate in the first place, lacks the experience or the knowledge to be the president, that they couldn’t control her husband, that her daughter knew nothing about government and politics, that none of them had the skills to manage a presidential campaign, that all of them were nimrods, that about 97 percent of the American public hates Hillary Clinton, that she doesn’t have the experience, that they don’t have the experience, and that all of them were just out of their minds.
Where’s James Carville and Donna Brazile when you need them?
The probably wouldn’t have done much better, either, though, in the real world.
John Edwards already had dibs on the “Easy” button.
What do you people expect for millions upon untold millions of dollars paid out to senior staff….competence……intelligence? You need unfathomable amounts of money for that.
They should have gone with the ‘cool button’ though, that would have picked up a few more states at least. Passing up on that slice of fried gold was a mistake.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/