In the LA Times this morning, Peter Nicholas writes a piece about Hillary Clinton's operation being "too scripted." The hook, of course, is the planted question at a campaign stop last week:

"It's a small thing that could be a metaphor for a bigger concern for people — over-management and too much caution," said Robert M. Shrum, a senior advisor to the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry.

Exactly. As everyone acknowledges, campaigns plant questions all the time. It's literally a nonstory. There hasn't even been a suggestion that Hillary does it more than anyone else, let alone that she's doing anything unusual.

But it gives the press an excuse to write about something they've all been itching to write about anyway. The planted question itself may be trivial, but the license it gives everyone to build enormous fairy castle metaphors about "what's wrong with Hillary" isn't. Is it any wonder that she's so cautious around the media?

Permalink| Posted @ 3:33 PM |