Remember when Hillary Clinton pulled out of Vogue a few months ago? Silly us, of course you do! If you're anything like us, in fact, you have night sweats about what it must be like to turn down an offer to have your picture in Vogue, shot by Annie Leibovitz. (Which is the only reason we never plan to run for president ourselves — we just can't imagine saying "no" to that.) Now, Julia Reed, the writer assigned to that piece, is talking about what happened leading up to Clinton's pullout. Assignments like these start with many un-fun breakfasts with Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson. Reed told WWD, "The man is the most charmless human being on the planet, and I'm sitting there sucking up to him." Ouch!

Eventually Reed set everything up: an interview with Clinton and a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz. Bill Clinton had even told Reed, who's interviewed Hillary several times over the past couple of years, that one of his favorite pictures of Hillary was a shot taken by Leibovitz for Vogue a while back. It all sounded promising — so what could go wrong? WWD reports:

After thinking everything was set, Reed months later was informed the deal was off. She said she was told, "We already have the women's vote in the bag," and that Wolfson said, '"We thought we were going to be in a bigger dogfight. We don't need you anymore.' This was right before Iowa. What an idiot!"

We thought Wintour's editor's letter on the matter was harsh enough, but now this? We'll go out on a limb here and take it Vogue isn't used to rejection.

Memo Pad: IF ONLY HILLARY HAD DONE VOGUE... [WWD]