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Update, 8:24: Marie Claire is standing by the story. Lea Goldman, Marie Claire's features director, said in a statement that while she agrees Clinton was not talking specifically about Slaughter, the "whining" quote was not just some throwaway about Holden Caulfield. Clinton was commenting on disliking when unhappy women in general whine, "part of a larger conversation about women in the workplace and striking a work-life balance," Goldman's statement says. "It's a great piece, and we are quite proud of it."

Clinton senior advisor Philippe Reines, meanwhile, maintains a more neutral tone. He told The Atlantic Wire that the Secretary of State does not see work/life balance as some big argument: "The Secretary’s point is that while this has become about taking sides, she doesn’t view it that way, she doesn’t see it as right or wrong, one approach or the other."

Update, 6:62 PM: Turns out, Hillary Clinton did not call Anne-Marie Slaughter a whiner—she was calling J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye character Holden Caulfield a whiner. The State Department's senior advisor Philippe Reines released a transcript to reporters Thursday evening with the quote:

AYELET WALDMAN: My daughter was reading Catcher in the Rye, and I said, “Oh, don’t you love that book?” And she said, “What is his problem? He’s unhappy? He should go volunteer.”



SECRETARY CLINTON: Good for her. I like your daughter without even meeting her. I mean, I think there’s so much to that, because I mean, God, I can’t stand whining. I can’t stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they are not happy with choices they made. You live in a time when there are endless choices, and you don’t have to have money for them. Money certainly helps. I mean, having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don’t even have to have money for it. But you have to – even, like, work on yourself, learn to play a sport, do something.



AYELET WALDMAN: I’m going to tell Sophie that you agree with her.

"It's outlandish and misleading for Marie Clare to imply anything else from sympathizing with reporter’s daughter Sophie," Reines said.