OPINION:
Hillary Clinton continues to discover how she failed twice to become “the inevitable president,” the second time by blowing the election that all the politicians, pundits, pollsters and consultants said she couldn’t lose. Hillary has developed a special gift at this.
She earlier had said that James Comey, then the director of the FBI, and John Podesta’s pilfered emails were the only reasons why she was so soundly thumped by Donald Trump, but at a technology conference earlier this week she expanded her list of heartless villains to 18. These include Facebook, Twitter, the Russians, the Democratic National Committee, racism, misogyny, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, voter suppression, The New York Times, Steve Bannon, Google, and “the media.” Does that make 18 yet?
She excluded from blame toenail fungus, the heartbreak of psoriasis, and, of course, herself. Decent, kind-hearted Americans can only be happy that daughter Chelsea’s cat, Socks, did not live long enough to see what happened to America’s first family of political plunder.
Fake news ruined her campaign, too. She doesn’t want anyone to forget fake news. “The Russians, in my opinion,” she said, “and based on the intel and counter-intel people I’ve talked to, could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided by Americans.”
Sexism, too. “I think a lot of people didn’t believe those of us who were yelling that it was hard to elect a woman president,” her campaign’s communications director of outreach, tells New York magazine, in support of his erstwhile boss.
She was at the mercy of reality, Hillary told the conference (only she didn’t call it reality in so many words), in the accounts of several journalists who were there. She complained that she inherited “nothing” from the Democratic National Committee. “It was bankrupt.” It was a sad tale.
Only the unkind and unkempt would try to rub a loser’s face in the debris of a campaign that couldn’t wait to blow itself up, taking the candidate with it. Losing is never easy, and though Hillary had been through a losing campaign before, being there again was no fun.
Throwing rocks and spitballs at everyone who was there with her will make it difficult for old friends to rally to her if she ever wants to run for something again, as she has hinted broadly she might. One such friend says — anonymously, for now — that he speaks for nearly everyone under the bus when he says he thinks the former almost president should return to her long walks in the woods, “and go as deep into the woods as she can make it.”
That seems a harsh way to treat a little lady, putting her at the mercy of a big bad wolf, but politics is not a bedtime story. It’s a contact sport, and even a late hit is sometimes part of the game.
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