Sally Quinn of the Kaplan Test Prep's newspaper division doesn't like Democrats, and is an expert at "whispering" campaigns against them. It's time to put those attacks down as forcefully as any attack from Limbaugh or Hannity.
It's well-documented that Sally Quinn doesn't like powerful people who come to Washington from outside the fold of the Village. Quinn currently has WH Social Secretary Desiree Rogers in her sights:
War has been declared between two of Washington DC's best known femmes sociales - Sally Quinn, the Georgetown hostess and wife of the Watergate-era Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, and Desiree Rogers, President Barack Obama's social gatekeeper.
(more after the jump)
This prompted a short but to the point, rec-listed diary yesterday by brooklynbadboy. The diary casts Quinn's attack in a racial light, as do others:
Had Quinn stopped there, she might not now be receiving flak for sounding extremely high and mighty. Whether she intended to or not, she has managed to expose a gap between old, white Washington - which she ably represents - and the new, black elite that came into town with the Obamas, many of them big hitters in Chicago's social and political circles.
It's easy to dismiss Quinn as a neo-Confederate socialite who doesn't like the Eebil Coloreds From Chicago. Digby is patting herself on the back for predicting Quinn's response, but her diary is more about Digby being right than acknowledging Quinn as a festering problem as serious as the Rush Limbaughs of the right.
Quinn's intelligence and ability to participate in issue-oriented discussions may be dubious, but as a GOP political operative, she's one of the best. Piss off Sally Quinn and you become the subject of whispering campaigns that make Karl Rove proud. Consider this from Salon in 1998:
Washington society maven Sally Quinn has been on a mean-spirited crusade against Bill and Hillary Clinton ever since the Clintons refused to kiss her ring.
And does Quinn let go? Not a chance. Here she is on CBS's "Early Show" in 2008:
"From the very beginning, when she married Bill Clinton, when she moved to Arkansas, she gave up her lucrative career, she changed her name during the campaign, 'I'll stand by my man' -- her personality changed. You remember when she first came into the White House and she had a different hairdo and a different outfit? She looked completely different. And people kept saying, 'Who is she?'
And here again from the 2008 primary season:
We can only guess what Bill Clinton has up his sleeve next to embarrass and humiliate his wife. More bimbo eruptions? More suspicious deals with foreign governments and questionable business associates? The release of the names of big donors to the Clinton Library and the Clinton Foundation? More painfully conflicted not so subtle put downs of her?
When she makes attacks like this, it doesn't matter whether Quinn is merely a bitter Villager who hates outsiders or a true GOP operative; her actions have the same result. If Rove, Limbaugh, or Hannity were to go after Democrats like Quinn does, the blogosphere would grip them in its collective jaws and swing them around until unconscious. Quinn gets a pass because she's regarded as a lightweight.
It's time to correct that. The blogosphere needs to treat Quinn's attacks on Rogers or Secretary Clinton as attacks on POTUS himself. Whispering campaigns fail when brought out in the open. Sally Quinn's whispering needs to be regularly and constantly brought into the open. Blog readers need to be reminded of her bitter and hateful attitudes towards Democrats regularly, so that those reminders get picked up by other outlets.
Some might argue that elevating Quinn will merely encourage her attacks. That may be true, but anyone who then associates themselves with her opinions will have to assume her baggage. A pundit or blogger who says "Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Glenn Beck has a point" then becomes connected to their wingnuttery. The blogger who agrees with Quinn can write, "Sally might be a lightweight, but on this she has a point."
Quinn's point is to foster a destructive whispering campaign against President Obama. This must not be tolerated.