The Hillary Memos

If you've ever scratched your head and wondered how on Earth Hillary Clinton lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, you need look no further than Josh Green's exhaustive post-mortem published in this week's edition of The Atlantic (read it here). What distinguishes this "What went wrong" piece from all the others before it is that Green bases it upon internal memos and e-mails that he obtained from key players within Clinton's campaign.

What is revealed is a frenetic, bee-hive full of conflict and in-fighting, and a queen unable to take charge and set a course for the colony. Not exactly the qualities one would hope for from a commander-in-chief:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence--on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to "do the job from Day One." In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles' heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton's loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

Mark Penn comes across as singularly ugly for urging Clinton to emphasize Obama's "lack of American roots." And Harold Ickes takes the prize for presumptuousness for his claim that the race would be over on Feb. 5, and the poor financial planning that stemmed from this belief. It's also clear from the memos that Clinton planned to run for president even before she was re-elected to her Senate seat, but feared that New Yorkers would frown on being used as a stepping stone for higher office.

Moreover, the document trail shows a calculated, often conflicted campaign that laid out its dubious lines of attack against Obama in striking detail. At any time, HIllary could have overridden the strategy that her staff put forth, but she didn't. It's really as simple as that. If you were still looking for a fall gal, look no further.