The Clinton Machine Lives -- And Matures

On Tuesday, Ben Smith, a long-time Clinton chronicler at Politico, fronted a clever story heralding the demise of the Clinton political machine, which has remained virtually silent since a passel of unflattering revelations leaked out this weekend about the revelations in "Game Change."

Smith observed that many senior Clinton advisers were probably sources for the authors and couldn't very well be asked to respond to characterizations they themselves made. This, he concludes, was a violation of the ultimate Clinton world taboo: "These people have violated the Clinton world's final taboo: After savaging one another in the press for more than a year, the former aides finally turned on the principals."

Not denied were thinly sourced reports that Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair in 2007 (half a sentence in the book), or that Clinton offended Ted Kennedy by ridiculing Obama, or that Hillary Clinton had encouraged campaign aides to play up Obama's early-in-life drug use.

Maybe the Clintons don't need defending.

Silence does not necessarily equate to an acknowledgment of accuracy -- and un-rebutted charges, in this instance, might not mean, ultimately, that the Clinton machine is dead, but rather, that it has matured into the new role.

One year ago, in fact, the Clinton rapid-response political operation decided to shut down. There have been five major books since then, including a blockbuster by historian Taylor Branch. The Clinton world has uttered nary a peep. It's also worth noting that neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton participated in interviews with the books' authors.

Hillary Clinton is the secretary of State. She is no longer in the political swamp. And she is comporting herself as a diplomat, not a politician. Obama has long since forgiven her. They have a very solid working relationship

Chapters written about the Clintons rely heavily on two sources. One of them, former strategist Mark Penn, has acknowledged talking to the reporters. The other, Patti Solis Doyle, has refused to comment. (The authors relied on reporting by The Atlantic's Joshua Green, who was the first to disclose that Penn had polled for Clinton in 2004 and that Hillaryland had created a war room within a war room to deal with President Clinton.)

The ability to fight back exists. Cheryl Mills, a Clinton insider, is now Clinton's chief of staff at the Department of State. Philippe Reines is a senior adviser there. They were at the tip of the spear when the Clinton machine kicked into operation for previous books, including Ed Klein's 2007 tome "The Truth About Hillary." Bill Clinton's Harlem office remains intact with the same players, including Matt McKenna, his spokesman, and Doug Band, his counselor.  They're not shrinking violets. In this case, they've chosen not to respond. Why drag the Clintons into the book's 15 minutes of fame? The only result would be more publicity for the authors and more distractions for both Clintons.

By the way: it is in some ways a testament to both of their relationships with President Obama that the Clintons have not litigated the book's allegations in the press. Hillary's working relationship with President Obama is solid and effective after a year. If the White House, or President Obama, were worried about the Clinton revelations, trust me, the circumstances would be different.

Who's the U.N. envoy to Haiti? Former President Clinton. Will his office spend time coordinating his efforts? Or would their time be better spent responding to a paraphrase of a comment said to someone who is now deceased?

The book alleges that Ted Kennedy took President Clinton's comments -- that Barack Obama would have been getting them coffee five years ago -- as a supreme insult, and insinuated that Kennedy believed it had racial implications.

There is something especially tawdry and even dangerous about debating something a dead man heard or said. It's disrespectful. And distracting.

Those Clinton loyalists who remain -- and there are plenty -- disagree with the premise of the book, which is that Hillary Clinton mismanaged her candidacy. They believe that the campaign did not live up to the candidate. Those who believed that Clinton herself was fundamentally flawed -- and one assumes that Ms. Solis Doyle is among those -- are not longer part of the inner circle.

For the record, here's what Halperin and Heilemann told Don Imus about the passage in question.

HEILEMANN: I think because they're quoting from the book. The Kennedy part is not and the Clinton part is not a quote. That is a quote from the book of the paraphrase from the book. Does that make sense?

DON IMUS: No, that's weak. Anyway, a few years ago this guy Obama would have been getting us coffee. What did he say?(CROSSTALK)

HALPERIN: Well, he said something just like that.

DON IMUS: Like, what?

HALPERIN: Well, we just -- again, because we knew that, that was an important quote, would get a lot of attention, as our sources tried to remember what was said, they didn't agree on the exact language. They agreed on the gist precisely. But we didn't want to be in the position of quoting something that sensitive in quotation marks without again as I've said, the very high level we were using. So, there's no doubt that, that is more than the essence of what he said. It's very close. The differences in the versions we've heard were not very far, one or two words in two cases but we didn't want to put it in quotes.

HEILEMANN: And just to be further clear, in this case in the book, we are very specific, we say, this is what Kennedy reported to some of his friends.DON IMUS: Right.

HEILEMANN: Claimed that Bill Clinton said. So, we even took it a little further out. A lot of other cases we'll just say, you know, Bill Clinton said, the following for Ted Kennedy for sure that happened. All we can say in this case is the Kennedy told people that's what Bill Clinton said that something very close to that and it enraged Kennedy because he took it as a pretty serious slam on Obama with some kind of negative racial connotations.

DON IMUS: You guys have been very careful to say that all of these sources, (INAUDIBLE), most of them, you knew. So, you were able to determine the veracity of their statements with in fact. Because, you had experience, probably but it's been my experience, not being a reporter but just common sense, that when somebody tells you what somebody else said, that sometimes a lot gets lost. And as an example, well, I say things about people on the radio which often are icky things, you know, and then it gets reported to these various people. It is always far worse than what I actually said.

HALPERIN: Well, look, that is the nature of the different challenge of reporting. Here's what we did to try to mitigate that as much as possible.