The press will no doubt take a different approach once the Republicans choose a nominee, who can then be written off as primitive or corrupt or inexperienced or stupid. I’m not expecting a revolution here, a paradigm shift in the way the media establishment conducts itself. But I am surprised at the way in which Hillary and her supporters dismiss media complaints as extraneous. Bad press hurts campaigns—ask Al Gore, John Kerry, or Mitt Romney. It can hurt Hillary Clinton too. Saturday Night Live is already portraying her as a power-mad robot; think of the damage that could do to perceptions of her over time. And there’s plenty of time.

By not talking to the press Clinton has made a strategic choice, as valid as any other. But it may be the wrong choice—in fact it probably is the wrong choice, because most of the choices Hillary Clinton has made since 2006 have been bad. She lost the Democratic nomination, she was the top foreign policy official for a president who is widely seen to have bungled foreign policy, she joined the ethically murky Clinton Foundation and gave high-paying speeches to business groups despite knowing she’d soon be running for president.

It’s the same lack of judgment and mismanagement that would cause her to vote for Iraq, then oppose the surge, then support the troop withdrawal; to do Obama’s bidding on Russia, Israel, Iran, Libya; to keep up the pen pal correspondence with Blumenthal; to act unlike any presidential candidate in recent memory. Maybe I’m dreaming, but the press could respond by taking someone who’s likable enough—and making her not likable at all.