Amy Klobuchar Should Be in Anger Management Therapy, Not The White House

The New York Times has become the third media outlet to do a story on Minnesota Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar's temper. Both The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed posted stories about Klobuchar's treatment of her staff earlier this month. Here's an excerpt from the NYT article:

Some former aides who were frequent targets of her ire acknowledged that the senator often had a point, praising her intelligence and political antenna. She has been re-elected in two landslides, including a 24-point victory last year in a state President Trump lost narrowly.

But her blistering feedback to staff was often substantially out of proportion to the offense, these former aides said. Word choice or grammatical issues could make Ms. Klobuchar especially furious, not only in prepared text but also in office meetings or common speech. Words like “straight-shooting” and “absolutely” were known to invite her scorn. She urged staff members never to say that another senator “led” something and asked them to call her a “co-sponsor” of legislation instead of a supporter, suggesting that the latter sounded weak.

Ms. Klobuchar’s exasperation often appeared connected to two factors: an abiding fear of being embarrassed in front of colleagues or in the press and the conviction that she works harder than her staff.

In one message, in which she said she had not been prepared properly for an event, Ms. Klobuchar reminded her team of the hours she kept.

“Please don’t claim lack of time,” she wrote, asking what else might explain their failure. “I flew in at one in the morning. I don’t have that luxury to blame lack of time. Unless YOU were up working at one am, and up again five am the next day, please don’t claim lack of time. That was when I was up.”

In private, she could deliver slashing remarks without particular provocation. Parched one day in the Capitol, she turned to a member of her team and said, “I would trade three of you for a bottle of water,” according to a person who witnessed it.

The article also notes how Klobuchar made a staff person clean a comb which she had used to eat a salad on a flight where no utensils were available as well as an incident where she threw binders and phones at her staff. She would also make staff who had taken family leave pay back the money earned upon their return to work.

People like former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Jennifer Palmieri can play the sexism card all she wants. It is intellectually dishonest and she knows it. But unless there is an audio tape of Klobuchar berating her staff a la Bobby Knight then there will be a critical mass of Democrats who will casually dismiss this serious matter.

If Klobuchar had behaved in this manner in any other workplace in America, she would be out of a job. But in Washington, D.C. it qualifies her to run for President. If Klobuchar's abuse were sexual in nature, Democrats and the #MeToo crowd would not abide it much less degrade her accusers. But evidently making history (or should I say herstory) is more important than behaving like a decent human being.

Fortunately, Helaine Olen of The Washington Post rejects this view and argues we can do better and that character matters:

Let’s not let the desire for a female president blind us to the reality of all this. When it comes to the matter of treating others with respect, we should seek to raise the standard men need to meet, not lower it so women can join in our nation’s bullyfest. We don’t need to replace one bully with another. We deserve better than that.

As long as Amy Klobuchar campaigns for the White House, we should campaign for her to seek anger management therapy.