[piasa]

Early in the process, Holbrooke came back from a meeting at the White House. "You did a good job," he said. "The secretary [Clinton] was pleased with her material but wants her folders to be as big as [those of Defense Secretary Robert] Gates. She wants color maps, tables, and charts." Clinton, continued Holbrooke, "does not want Gates to dominate the conversation by waving his colorful maps and charts in front of everybody. No one reads this stuff, but they all look at the maps and color charts."

I've heard of penis envy, but but I didn't know Hillary had "Manila folder & colorful pie chart envy" too.

Everyone in the office looked at him. "So who does read all this?" I asked, pointing to a huge folder on his desk. "I'll tell you who," he said. "The president reads them. He reads every folder."

All one of them? Sorry, I don't believe the guy who won't find time for an intel briefing spends copious amounts of time looking at pie charts from Gates' huge folder or reading anything therein.

[SueRae]

Secretary Gates was the only adult in the administration.

[Cvengr]

It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama didn’t know how to operate Excel or even the concept of a spreadsheet.