The Times has a weird piece today by Peter Baker on “the fall of Desiree Rogers,” the former White House social secretary.

It’s one of those articles where everyone has an agenda, but none of the agendas have anything to do with serving the reader of the newspaper.

Baker, who treads gently indeed with Rogers, wants to curry favor with a source who’s clearly displeased about having had to leave the White House.

Rogers wants to get the word out that she wasn’t a complete screw-up.

And White House officials like Rahm Emanuel, who cooperated with the article, want to mend fences with Rogers so that she won’t become an anti-Obama leaker.

Here’s Baker’s thesis:

The rise and fall of Desirée Rogers, the glamorous Harvard-educated corporate executive who brought sizzle to the State Dining Room but became a victim of a publicity stunt by a pair of aspiring reality show stars, is a tale familiar to almost any White House. A new president comes to town and installs friends he trusts, but inevitably some of them wind up burned by the klieg lights and corrosive politics of Washington.

This is nonsense. Rogers came to town and almost instantly did the one thing that you don’t want to do as a new arrival in Washington: Attract attention to yourself. (Especially if you’re not an elected official.) Suddenly every glossy magazine had its own photo shoot with Rogers—Vanity Fair, WSJ, Vogue—dressed in expensive designer clothing more costly than that worn by Sarah Palin in 2008’s presidential  campaign. She attended Fashion Week as a guest of Anna Wintour. Michelle Obama had to stop Rogers from showing up at an MTV party.

Remember—this is during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Baker links Rogers’ downfall to Vince Foster and Harriet Myers: “Washington can be seductive and then destructive.”

Oh, balderdash. Rogers made rookie mistakes that were inspired by ego; the destruction was self-destruction.

Then, when the White House crashers fiasco happened, she was pushed out. Pretty simple—she was paying to much attention to promoting herself, and not enough attention to her job. It happened a lot with the Clinton White House, which was filled with 20-somethings, and almost not at all in the GWB White House, which was pretty disciplined.

(Rogers also started speaking publicly about “the Obama brand,” which was just idiocy, perhaps something Rogers picked up at HBS.)

For Ms. Rogers, associates said the episode proved a searing experience that has soured her on Washington. She believes she was left largely undefended by the White House… And while she is unwilling to discuss her story publicly, several associates [Blogger: i.e., people whom she directed to talk to Baker, and possibly Rogers herself--that's a very carefully turned phrase, "unwilling to discuss her story publicly"] shared her account that her side has been lost….”As she put it, ‘They never lifted a finger to help me set the record straight.’”

As the great Chryssie Hynde once wrote, “It is time for you to stop all of your sobbing.”

Because Rogers is now making a second Washington mistake: Cooperating with a self-serving article to try to improve your reputation. The city rehabilitates people in its own time. What Washington doesn’t appreciate is people who make their bosses look bad—whether while they’re working for the president, or after. All this article does is suggest that the White House did the right thing in getting rid of her.