Did Hillary Clinton bug out of the YearlyKos presidential candidates' breakout sessions on Saturday, or was she never in? This evening, after DNC chair Howard Dean's keynote, one of the conference organizers made a couple of announcements, including the news that while Clinton would be attending the main candidates' forum, which will be in somewhat of a traditional Q&A format with the other candidates, she was not going to be able to attend the one-on-one breakout that is immediately following, and instead would be represented by her senior advisor Ann Lewis.

This announcement was greeted by loud boos from most of the 1500 people in the room. Many of them had picked Clinton as their breakout choice and are now grumbling that they can't trade their wristband in for one of the other candidates who will actually be attending a breakout session. (Word in the hallways is that Obama and Edwards are already "sold out.")

But it's not at all clear that Clinton had actually committed to participating in the more intimate breakout session in the first place. I was sitting next to NY State Democratic Party co-chair Dave Pollak, who is a Hillary supporter, and he immediately called one of the campaign's top national staffers to check on what had happened. A few minutes later, he told me, Clinton internet director Peter Daou called back and told him, in essence, that Clinton had never actually agreed to do the breakout session, and that he had been telling the YearlyKos people this for over a week.

The New York Times's Katharine Q. Seelye was standing next to us and has reported the same story on the Times' blog, The Caucus. Ari Melber of The Nation has a post up that tells the story the way it must appear to most Kossacks, as a last-minute reversal by Clinton and a seemingly "odd" move for her campaign as it appears to be making some headway reaching out to the netroots. Right now as I write this, one of the top recommended diaries on Daily Kos is titled, "YK '07: Effing Hillary Jilts Kossacks!" Since in politics, 90% of reality is perception, it will be interesting to see how the Clinton campaign deals with this episode. Perhaps the YearlyKos organizers will offer a clarification tomorrow. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Gina Cooper, the lead organizer of YearlyKos, has indeed posted a clarification that is titled "Senator Clinton Did Not Jilt Kossacks." It reads:

Senator Clinton's campaign (and in fact those of every candidate participating) have been incredibly flexible and helpful in putting together this Presidential forum. Saturday is going to be an amazing day.

In the weeks leading up to the convention we worked with her campaign and the campaigns of EVERY candidate participating to accommodate a diverse array of scheduling and other concerns.

Yearlykos wholeheartedly disagrees with the sentiments expressed in the diary entitled "Effing Hillary Jilts Kossacks." There was a miscommunication between Yearlykos and Senator Clinton’s Campaign, which was never under the impression that Senator Clinton would be attending the breakout session due to a scheduling conflict. We regret due to this miscommunication, the announcement was made so belatedly. We are ecstatic she will be attending the forum and that Anne Lewis will be representing her in the breakout session.

[SECOND UPDATE] The blogger whose post complaining about the Clinton announcement made it to the top of DailyKos's recommended list has apologized, saying he or she accepts there was a "mix up."

[THIRD UPDATE] Peter Daou posts on DailyKos that "Hillary will now join the breakout session for a good portion of the time."