For Clinton and Marie Claire, Much Ado About Whining

The story was irresistible: Hillary Clinton lashes out at her former adviser! Calls Anne-Marie (“Women Can't Have It All”) Slaughter a “Whiner”!

Except that the truthiness of this proposition was pretty much zero.

An interview with Mrs. Clinton in Marie Claire quickly found notoriety online Thursday after Politico wrote that Mrs. Clinton had appeared to criticize Ms. Slaughter, a former top policy adviser. Ms. Slaughter wrote a widely discussed article in The Atlantic this summer arguing that many women cannot live up to the pressure they face to juggle demanding jobs and family responsibilities.

Midway through Marie Claire's 3,300-word article, written by Ayelet Waldman, Mrs. Clinton is said to have responded to a question about the Atlantic article with “palpable” disapproval. “Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs,” she said. “Other women don't break a sweat. They have four or five, six kids. They're highly organized. They have very supportive networks.”

The Marie Claire story continues in the next paragraph without reference to any change in topic:

Clinton has very little patience for those whose privilege offers them a myriad of choices but who fail to take advantage of them. “I can't stand whining,” she says. “I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. You live in a time when there are endless choices … Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself … Do something!”

Some readers interpreted this quote as representing further comments about Ms. Slaughter, and the story circulated widely online: on Politico, The Huffington Post, Jezebel and elsewhere. It found further life when the notion began to fall apart that the “whining” comment was made in response to Ms. Slaughter.

Mrs. Clinton herself called the attribution “wildly inaccurate.” A spokeswoman for Marie Claire told various publications, including Politico, that the “whining” comment was not directed at Ms. Slaughter but was, “as noted in the story, part of a larger conversation about women in the workplace and striking a work-life balance.”

That still wasn't good enough for the State Department. Philippe Reines, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton, told The Washington Post that the “whining” comment was made in reference to a question from Ms. Waldman about, of all things, J.D. Salinger's book “The Catcher in the Rye.” He provided an excerpt from a transcript of the interview:

AYELET WALDMAN: My daughter was reading “Catcher in the Rye,” and I said, “Oh, don't you love that book?” And she said, “What is his problem? He's unhap py? He should go volunteer.”

SECRETARY CLINTON: Good for her. I like your daughter without even meeting her. I mean, I think there's so much to that, because I mean, God, I can't stand whining. I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they are not happy with choices they made. You live in a time when there are endless choices, and you don't have to have money for them. Money certainly helps. I mean, having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to - even, like, work on yourself, learn to play a sport, do something.

Mr. Reines also complained that Marie Claire had publicized the article through e-mails to journalists that specifically characterized the comment as a response to Ms. Slaughter.

By Friday afternoon, meanwhile, the meme continued to spread. Politico's story - which contains Marie Claire's statement that the quote was about “a large r conversation about women in the workplace” but nothing about “The Catcher in the Rye” - was the most-read recent story on the site.

Ms. Slaughter spoke her mind in a Twitter message late Thursday afternoon: “Hillary Clinton, for whom I have the greatest admiration and loyalty, was not talking about me when she mentioned whining. #anything4astory”

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.