The long knives come out for Huma

Oh, boy! We have a leading indicator that infighting, mutual recriminations, and media leaks finally are breaking out among members of Team Hillary, as responsibility for losing the election is being dodged. All the help from John Brennan and the media claiming “hacking” (by implication of voting machines, but really meaning John Podesta clicked on a link in a phishing email) isn’t enough to blame Russia and have it stick. It is already leading to widespread (and effective) mockery: When you get together a group of highly competitive people, make them into a team, and then have them depend on the whim of a narcissistic, power-mad congenital liar, and they fail, you can depend on a circular firing squad forming. The risk of going down with the ship outweighs the personal disadvantages of making enemies on the former team.

Vanity Fair (of course!) is the first to bring us news of the backbiting and chooses Huma Abedin, the fashionably slender and sympathetically cyber-cheated on, as the focus. William D. Cohan writes: “Maybe I’m just pissed off, but I really don’t give a shit about what happens to Huma to be honest with you,” one close adviser to Hillary Clinton told me recently. Well, that’s hostile! What sin did Huma commit? He was irked, in particular, at Abedin’s seemingly superfluous breach of decorum during a post-election event. On the day after Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Donald Trump, this person said, Abedin appeared within the rope line while Clinton greeted her morose and woebegone supporters. “You’re staff, O.K.?” this adviser continued. “Staff is staff. You’re not a principal.” Jealousy, the green-eyed monster. Who else got to pal around with the president to be in matching outfits? The close Clinton adviser elaborated that Abedin and the other tight-knit circle of people may have suffocated Clinton, preventing the campaign from taking in outside counsel. “The real anger is toward Hillary’s inner circle,” the Clinton insider told me. “They reinforced all the bad habits.” For instance, the suggestion had been made that Clinton should show her gregarious side, by, for instance, appearing more often on The View. (She appeared once, but Bernie Sanders, her rival for the nomination, appeared a handful of times.) This is encouraging. Who else in the inner circle is at fault? The article gives no clue. But presumably, everyone who worked for Hillary in an important role reads V.F. So they are on notice that it is metaphorically "kill or be killed." By an unnamed foe who was a little farther from the sun queen at court and who spoke to the bible of the mindless. This is going to get ugly, and I can hardly wait.