Thread by @frodofied

Just finished a preview copy of Chozick's book.

I'm not angry w/ Amy anymore. Reading between the lines I've come to feel sorry for her.

There were certainly more critical reporters of Clinton on the trail, and Chozick's work is often inconsistent. 1/

washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/b…

She suffers by her connection to the New York Times which became the evil center of mainstream media mayham throughout 2015 to 2016.

Amy Chozick unintentionally reveals herself to be a woman not merely obsessed with @HillaryClinton, but perhaps unknowingly. 2/

And there is no shortage of psychoanalysis to be done here I assure you. At root it appears that Chozick wanted nothing more then to be liked and admired by the woman who came to dominate her life and psyche for over a decade.

She wanted acceptance and acknowledgement.

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And while she is quick to admonish others for not understanding how Hillary Clinton came to be Hillary Clinton after 30 years of ridiculous and baseless attacks, she never allows that same demand for reflection to enter her own critique of Clinton. It's an odd disparity.

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Chozick, in fact, seems oddly unable to connect her own defenses of Clinton that she applies to others throughout the book to her own experiences with and expectations of her.

It's impossible not to see that Chozick was devastated by Clinton's loss. 5/

Yet, her predictable evaluation of Clinton's stategy vs. Trump's is almost mind numbing for it's lack of depth.

There is much she is willing to credit Trump for and default Clinton for. Most of it displaced.

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And her frequently restated and wholly ironic criticism of Hillary Clinton for supposedly not providing appropriate reasons for even wanting to be president flies in the face of her own correct assessment that Clinton faced much overt sexism during the campaign.

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This, of course, was a complaint heard sometimes during the campaign, but relentlessly after the election itself, and it's one of the most infuriating and ridiculous and ultimately sexist complaints that continues to survive dangerously in so much post 2016 analysis.

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I'm a person who has followed politics closely for the whole of my adult life. I read a lot of editorials it probably even more op-eds.

I literally cannot for the life of me remember an instance where a male candidate was asked to provide such an explanation.

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In fact, Chozick herself should understand that no answer or explanation that Hillary Clinton could have given would have been acceptable to anyone in the media.

Any answer would have been criticized, torn apart, and belittled, ridiculed even.

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Nevermind the fact that Clinton was the most obvious, most ready, most credible, and most qualified successor to her friend and former boss Barack Obama.

Never mind that Clinton hoped to continue and safeguard Obama's legacy.

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Never mind the Clinton understood more than anybody what was that stake and knew that it would take a formidable intellect and wealth of experience to combat what was coming.

None of that matters.

None of it.

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And apparently none of those are good enough reasons to have wanted to run for the presidency in 2016.

If asked such a question most male candidates would have probably answered with what would ultimately be nothing more than "I'm the best man for the job."

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And that answer would have been one that Chozick and most of her colleagues in the mainstream media would have happily accepted without much controversy.

That's just a fact.

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That Chozick and so many others I completely unable to understand that fact remains just one of so many complex and annoying questions that will haunt 2016 probably forever.

The book is not unreadable and it's certainly enlightening at points, even moving.

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What it lacks, though, are all the things that could have made it a great book.

Chozick does very little to resuscitate her reputation for those who we were so disappointed in her and so many of her colleagues at the New York Times during the campaign.

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But she does add nuance and even Humanity to her own place in that story. She yourself seems unable to fully understand what happened with the media's coverage of Clinton and frequently seems angry about it.

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In end one leaves thinking that Chozick might have some photo or essay tucked away somewhere that she had one day hoped to hand to a President Hillary Clinton to autograph for her.

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They would have smiled at each other, Chozick probably imagined, with some form of strange mutual respect. The kind only attained by adversaries who fought for opposing sides but the greater good together through the Long haul.

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What Chozick still finds hard to swallow, however, is her own level of responsibility and certainly that of her profession for ensuring that she and Clinton would never be able to have such a moment.

It will never come.

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Chasing Hillary is an interesting book. And it's a probably necessary addition to the record of what happened in 2016.

Whether it's worth your time as a reader I'll leave that for you to judge.

#AmyChozick