donald_graham1.jpgThe ComPost has a really sophisticated, sexist piece on Hillary Clinton’s close circle of advisers, that simultaneously makes the point that the Clinton campaign operates in what I once heard someone describe as the “Davos Bubble.”

Here’s some of the subtle sexist imagery, adding up to a portrait of power mad, controlling womyn, just for a taste:

Fifteen years after Clinton first brought these women together at the White House, the “board” has officially reconvened to help map her unprecedented effort to follow in her husband’s footsteps. They are acutely aware their work is making history. Once seen as a tight little sorority, today the group — happily self-described as “Hillaryland”– is at the center of a front-running presidential campaign. Never have so many women operated at such a high level in one campaign, working with a discipline and a loyalty and a legendary secrecy rarely seen at this level of American politics.

Older and tougher, they have formed a closely knit Praetorian Guard around Clinton that plots strategy, develops message and clamps down on leaks. But their extraordinary protectiveness also contributes to an ongoing perception of insularity around the candidate and the campaign.

And here’s the bubble of insulation and inflexibility part:

But this kind of allegiance can exact a cost. Clinton’s disciplined operation, closer to the model employed by President Bush than to the freewheeling style of her husband, can seem deaf to dissonant voices and unexpected political developments.

“I would have to say the disadvantages outweigh the advantages,” says William Mayer, a political science professor at Northeastern University who studies presidential campaigning. “You run the risk of a groupthink mentality often taking hold of something, and you’re slow to realize things are not going well.”

The ultimate problem with the piece is not that it describes the insularity of the Clinton network, but that it feels the need to make this an issue about women, and not just about political professionals. It’s very sophisticated, but extremely sexist.

That’s Donald Graham in the photo above, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington Post Company.

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