Mark Penn: "Is you is or is you ain't." -- Hillary's chief strategist distances himself from campaign, saying he is not in charge of anything.

File this under "unbelievable." Despite having been paid $5 million by the Clinton campaign, chief stategist Mark Penn now tells us he hasn't had anything to do with anything with respect to the campaign.

From The New York Times:

Despite Mrs. Clinton’s upbeat tone, there were signs that her campaign was under stress and was engaged in internal finger-pointing after 11 straight primary and caucus defeats. In an e-mail message sent over the weekend to The Los Angeles Times, Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, appeared to distance himself from the campaign’s operations.

The Los Angeles Times quoted Mr. Penn as writing in the e-mail that he had “no direct authority in the campaign.” The newspaper also quoted him describing himself as merely “an outside message adviser with no campaign staff reporting to me.”

The e-mail message continued: “I have had no say or involvement in four key areas — the financial budget and resource allocation, political or organizational sides. Those were the responsibility of Patti Solis Doyle, Harold Ickes and Mike Henry, and they met separately on all matters relating to those areas.”

Last month Ms. Doyle stepped down as Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and Mr. Henry resigned from the post of deputy campaign manager. Mr. Ickes remains as a senior adviser.

Howard Wolfson, the campaign’s communications chief, responded to Mr. Penn’s e-mail message by telling The Los Angeles Times that it was Mr. Penn who had top responsibility for the campaign’s message, and who ran daily meetings on the topic. Another aide told the newspaper that Mr. Penn spoke to Mrs. Clinton regularly.