When the cast of “Morning Joe” pointed out that Ms. Conway’s recent appearances on news shows proved her a useless source of information,<br />when they sneered at Ms. Conway’s apparent White House ostracization, it was difficult to not feel stirrings of sympathy.<br />On a panel about women voters, Ms. Conway spoke with a pragmatism<br />that stood in opposition to contemporary TV personalities like Elisabeth Hasselbeck, whose brand of delicate pouting defined the conservative zeitgeist.<br />The first time I saw Ms. Conway speak was at a New Yorker Festival panel in 2012.<br />It was difficult not to feel bad for her when “Saturday Night Live” depicted her as a craven<br />hack driven to “Fatal Attraction”-style debasement by a desire to appear on the news.<br />Not long ago, Ms. Conway felt like a vital part of a system that needed smart people on both sides to make it work.<br />As Kellyanne Conway sleepwalks her way through a series of increasingly embarrassing interviews, it’s been hard not to feel sorry for her.<br />I watched her the way a person might stand at the kitchen window and watch a raccoon abscond with the first tomato of spring.<br />As a pollster who studied the electoral behavior of women, she served as a bridge<br />between the right wing and a demographic that often seemed to perplex them.<br />Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world.<br />She’d hammer Hillary Clinton for talking too much about gender and duck behind her femininity in the face of legitimate criticism.
