Yes, it matters that Hillary was a ruthless megalomaniac 20 years ago

Every time something comes out that supports the impression that Hillary Clinton is a power-hungry megalomaniac, I feel somewhat duty-bound to comment on it even though I find it astonishing there is any question left about this proposition. How can anyone who pays even two bits of attention to her not see it? But I guess more evidence never hurts, so thanks to Alana Goodman for thoroughly reviewing the latest evidence of the obvious in the Washington Free Beacon. The papers recently released from the archives of the late Diane Blair, a close friend of Hillary's, basically give us some watch-them-making-sausage-type details of how Hillary operated back in the Clinton presidency.

Here's a passage that pretty well sums up Hillary's attempts to run the show at the White House, and the fury she felt when everyone didn't do what she wanted:

Hillary Clinton's "adversaries" included the media, Republicans, and top members of President Clinton's staff, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis of the contents of the Blair archive. "HC says press has big egos and no brains," wrote Blair on May 19, 1993, during the White House travel office controversy. "That [the White House is] just going to have to work them better; that her staff has figured it out and would be glad to teach [Bill's] staff."

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The First Lady often confided in Blair about her "hellacious" first year in the White House, and her many clashes with staffers, administration figures, and her husband. By the spring of 1994, Hillary was "furious" at Bill for "ruining himself and the Presidency." "She keeps trying to shape things up, knows what's wrong, but [Bill] can't fire people, exert discipline, punish leakers," Blair wrote on May 17, 1994. "Never had strategy for Whitewater, troopers, Paula [Jones]. ... Inability to organize, make tough choices, drives her nuts." So yeah, she had a over-sized notion of her own brilliance, and it drove her nuts that people didn't salute and do whatever she said. Including Bill. This is nothing that hasn't been obvious for a long time just by simple observation, but if that's not enough for you, here you have it in the words of one of her close friends. Now there's a fair question to be asked about whether this is really worth talking about as conservatives gear up for a likely campaign against her in 2016. Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, whom I respect immensely, argues it is not:

That's not entirely true (that attacking a politician's past always fails), but it's at least true in relation to the long-ago behavior of Hillary Clinton. Besides, why spend a lot of time focusing on her time as First Lady, when we have the still-relevant example of her incompetence as Secretary of State? She started off her four-year run as America's top diplomat by sucking up to Russia with a reset button that blamed all of the problems between the two countries on George W. Bush, only to continuously get upstaged and outplayed by Vladimir Putin. Hillary ended it with the disaster in Libya, culminating in the sacking of our diplomatic facility in Benghazi and the loss of a US Ambassador and three other Americans, all without any effective response whatsoever. The problem with Hillary isn't her cut-throated approach to politics. It's that she's incompetent. We're better off focusing on that more recent and vivid history than in revisiting the nostalgic past of the Democratic Party.

Ed is certainly right about every criticism he makes of Hillary's incompetence. But let me explain why I believe an examination of her past serves well to support the criticisms of her competence. Simply, it goes to the question of why a completely unprepared and incompetent person has the idea that she should be president in the first place. That is truly one of the most maddening things about Hillary Clinton - that she has this idea in her head at all. Her supporters argue now that she is "qualified" because she was a senator and Secretary of State. But Hillary had designs on the presidency before she'd had either of those jobs, and she went and got those jobs solely to strengthen her case that she's qualified for the one she really wants. That's why she did nothing of consequence in either one. She only got the jobs to say she'd had them, not to accomplish anything and certainly not to take the slightest risk that could potentially damage her political brand. The examination of her behind-the-scenes behavior as First Lady gives us true insight into the mind that ever got the idea in the first place that Hillary Clinton should be the leader of this nation - and it is best summed up thusly: Hillary has a vastly overinflated opinion of herself. We saw this when she first became First Lady and she let us know in no uncertain terms that she wasn't the baking-cookies type, nor did she intend to champion non-controversial things like literacy because she wasn't like other First Ladies. She had a law degree! She was smart! In fact, she could be co-president, and she would be! But we see from her actual record that she's not as sharp as she thinks she is. She clashed with just about everyone she encountered in Washington. She had all kinds of opinions about how things should be done, but no one would listen to her and that drove her nuts. Her attempt to run health care reform in 1993 and 1994 was an unmitigated disaster, and anyone could have seen that she possessed neither the skill nor the experience to lead such an undertaking. Yet there she was, running a secretive and discombobulated process that was a policy failure and a political fiasco. Why did it fail so badly? Because Hillary doesn't know what she's doing. Didn't then. Doesn't now. Her behavior as First Lady matters now because this is who she really is, and it explains exactly why her records in the Senate and at the State Department are so unimpressive. These papers reveal a woman who is convinced she is a genius, but in fact is about as far from that as a person can be. And yet she is treated as a virtual shoe-in for the Democratic nomination - because her political brand has been largely embraced by political media in spite of it bearing no relation to who and what she really is. Every fact that counters that narrative is important - including both the emptiness of her record and the behind-the-scenes information that reveals the ruthless, ambitious, self-important megalomaniac who refuses to be stopped in her pursuit of a job she is completely incapable of doing.