The Hillary Story That Would Not Die

Jeff Bercovici is on vacation. Guest blogger Sean Elder submits:

The GQ story on in-fighting in Hillaryland that Politico claimed on Monday had been killed by Bill Clinton has found a new home, sources tell us - at the Atlantic, where the offending author, Josh Green is a senior editor.

For those who missed it, Politico's Ben Smith alleged that the former president had his spokesman, Jay Carson, deliver the news: that if an unflattering portrait of Hillary's campaign ran, Bill would not agree to be GQ's Man of the Year in December. GQ editor Jim Nelson confirmed that they weren't running the story, but would not go into the why.

GQ writer George Saunders had already accompanied Bill to Africa and the Man of the Year story was in the pipeline, and perhaps Nelson (who declined further comment, having said too much perhaps the first time) figured that was worth a lot more than another story about dissent behind a leading presidential contender's campaign. (Besides, GQ is a men's magazine, and any story about women fighting with each other may have a dog-bites-man aura to it.)

And maybe he just didn't like the story.

All's well that ends well, though. Neither Green (whose last piece for the Atlantic was about Karl Rove's belly-flop of an exit) nor Atlantic editor Jim Bennet would confirm it but we hear you'll be seeing it there soon, and small wonder: They already have their Bill cover story.

There's a lesson, I suppose, about trying to suppress information in a free society. It's like Whac-a-Mole: knock it down here and it comes out there. It's freedom of the press the way the framers envisioned it, back when they were playing Whac-a-Mole.

by Sean Elder