Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Get It

Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 1:46pm

"What Happened" is proof that she doesn't understand the lessons of the 2016 election.

In the first hundred pages of What Happened, Hillary Clinton writes that she decided to run for office during a vacation with the designer Oscar de la Renta and that when she lost she received an invitation from George W. Bush to get burgers. These bookends are an early sign that there is something amiss in this much-anticipated tell-all of the 2016 campaign, which attempts—and fails—to offer a diagnosis of how Clinton lost an election to the most unqualified and most loathed presidential candidate in modern history. These anecdotes suggest a fatal lack of awareness, an inability to see that she and her party may have grown out of touch. To the contrary, she says. She was the victim of forces beyond her control. Journalists, Russia, Bernie Sanders: These are a few of her least favorite things.

This book is precisely what her critics predicted it would be. What Happened suffers from stilted prose and insipid inspirational quotes, but that is par for the course for a political memoir. The real problem with What Happened is that it is not the book it needed to be. It spends more time on descriptions of Clinton’s various post-election coping strategies, which include chardonnay and “alternative nostril breathing,” than it does on her campaign decisions in the Midwest. It is written for her fans, in other words, and not for those who want real answers about her campaign, and who worry that the Democratic Party is learning the wrong lessons from the 2016 debacle.

*

She treats her party’s broader left wing similarly. Clinton dedicates an entire section of the book to “Idealism and Realism.” In it, she tries to set herself up as the wise, canny politician to Sanders’s street-preaching fool, a contrast she uses to indict progressives who have clashed with her. When Black Lives Matter activists interrupt a campaign event with criticisms of her husband’s infamous 1994 crime bill, she meets with them—and concludes they just don’t understand what they’re talking about. They “didn’t want to talk about developing a policy agenda,” she complains. “One was singularly focused on getting me to accept personal responsibility for having supported policies, especially the crime bill that my husband signed in 1994, which he claimed created a culture of mass incarceration.”

*

All of this is exacerbated by the book’s proud one percent vibe. Long before she gets to the crime bill, she informs us that her campaign once partied at a Hamptons fundraiser with Jimmy Buffet because “sometimes we just needed to have fun.” (Jon Bon Jovi and Paul McCartney reportedly “danced under the stars.”) She describes her “glam squad” in detail, well before before she tries to explain how she allowed Trump to destroy the Democratic firewall in the Midwest. She doesn’t mention the unpaid prison labor that kept her and Bill “well fed and taken care of” during their time in the Arkansas governor’s mansion, but she does tell us that Anna Wintour recommended her make-up artist.

*

Sanders may have lost the primary, but it’s his agenda, not Clinton’s, that grabs headlines now. On September 12, the day of What Happened’s release, Senators Mazie Hirono, Richard Blumenthal, and Al Franken announced that they will co-sponsor Sanders’s Medicare for All bill. They were virtual latecomers: Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey, and Kirsten Gillibrand had already jumped on board. Even Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia, expressed some grudging acceptance of the idea, calling it an “option that should be explored.” Representative John Conyers, meanwhile, has 117 co-sponsors for his own version of the bill. All this for a policy Clinton still opposes.

https://newrepublic.com/article/144797/hillary-clinton-doesnt-get

This is the second article down at the link. Best autopsy of a dead campaign run by intellectually/ethically bankrupt campaigner I've ever read.

This middle finger waving extravaganza that she so delusionally (dishonestly) titled What Happened just might be the freaking silver bullet that most of the civilized world has been praying for since the carpetbagging old baggage sleazed out of Arkansas with Slick.

Tags: 
Making Enemies Clinton Creature whaaaah!
Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Submitted by Raggedy Ann on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 2:23pm
Raggedy Ann's picture

can be found on Counterpunch:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/15/hillary-happened/

It's got some hilarity in it!

up
0 users have voted.
—

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 2:48pm
thanatokephaloides's picture

@Raggedy Ann

You don’t have to read any further than the cover of the book to answer the question posed by its title: What Happened: Hillary Clinton. Glutton for punishment, I took a masochistic dive into its dark pages anyway.

Jeffrey St. Clair, please accept my thanks for this noble public service! Smile

up
0 users have voted.
—

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 2:59pm
Anja Geitz's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Don’t skim these pages in search of a self-lacerating confession or an apologia. What Happened reads more like a drive-by shooting rampage. The book is a score-settling scattershot rant, enfilading anyone who stood in Clinton’s way, from Bernie Sanders to James Comey. Amid Hillary’s hitlist of villains, even toothless Joe Biden gets gut-shot.

up
0 users have voted.
—

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by Dr. John Carpenter on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 3:08pm

@Raggedy Ann Great link. Loved this too:

“Why am I seen as such a divisive figure and, say, Joe Biden and John Kerry aren’t?” she mopes. “They’ve cast votes of all kinds, including some they regret, just like me? What makes me such a lightning rod for fury? I’m really asking. I’m at a loss.”

I'm sure this sums it up right there.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Submitted by Nastarana on Sat, 09/16/2017 - 11:32am

@Dr. John Carpenter
for all their many flaws have been known to be halfway competent at times. Remember 2008? Biden did what a VP candidate is supposed to do, he went on the attack, with a schedule which would have tired a man half his age and delivered Pennsylvania, Delaware and probably Ohio as well. Remember the VP debate where he wiped the floor with Caribou Barbie without ever insulting or demeaning her?

Kerry's tenure at State may have been undistinguished but that may have been because he was mostly occupied in cleaning up after Herself.

I am inclined to think the Herself lost the election the moment she called Herself a "progressive that gets things done", which perhaps reminded people that she in fact has accomplished very little.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Mary Bennett

Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:20pm
Amanda Matthews's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Of course, Hillary Clinton has never been able to conceal her contempt for her enemies, real and imagined. It’s one reason she’s never been a successful politician. Where others are supple, she is taut. Unlike Bill, Hillary is a prolific, but graceless and transparent liar. She is also probably the nastiest political figure in America since Nixon. Yet she lacked Nixon’s Machiavellian genius for political manipulation. Hillary wears her menace on her face. She could never hide her aspiration for power; her desire to become a war criminal in the ranks of her mentor Henry Kissinger (symbolized by the laurels of a Nobel Peace Prize, naturally). Americans don’t mind politicians with a lust to spill blood, but they prefer them not to advertise it.

I don't think the author likes her very much. And boy howdy, I CAN RELATE (as we used to say)

up
0 users have voted.
—

I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 2:33pm
detroitmechworks's picture

sold their soul to the Democrats.

Seriously, I don't give a flying fuck about Hillary, but when she and hers turns a great rock band into a group primarily known for showing up at election night loser parties...

At least Richie Sambora got a good solo album during the "Creative Differences" that led up to that decision...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv8ZaD_oFpE]

up
0 users have voted.
—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 6:11pm
Mark from Queens's picture

@detroitmechworks
I have the same loathing for those poseurs as I do Her, Her with her "Soft Power" foreign policy.

Just like their soft metal. Cheeseball to the core. Rides a steel horse, right? The extent of that guy's affiliation with motorcycles is a Planet Hollywood franchise publicity appearance, and nothing more. They're the same type of phony, entitled assholes. Obsessed with status and appearances with the "right" people, they both spend lots of marketing dollars and campaigning to buy off the public's fealty.

Some years ago Jovi Boy applied for and got a Soho loft for himself as part of an artists incentive NYC was offering. Talk about Neoliberal advantages and entitlement. Back in the horrible 80's he also told the Cinderella guys that if he got them signed (which I think he did) he'd do so only on account of taking a % of their earnings. His biggest (shitty) hit mentions "union workers on the docks" or something, I think. Real man of the people I guess. He's another grifter and plagiarizer - in that case more a pathetically cheap emulator of fellow Jeresy guy Springsteen (as an aside, where was Brucie when Bernie could have used him? Guess he doesn't like the disrupt the status quo that much. Nah, for that you need to look to the real guys, like Neil Young, Graham Nash and Tom Morello who aren't compulsively counting their dollars, potential concert sales and future political invites, when contemplating taking a public stand).

I have to say, like a friend of mine who admitted he watched the Clinton campaign election night coverage again just to see Her cult fall apart in front of our eyes, I relished thinking of the moment when campaign operatives had to call the fireworks company to pack up their wares in the Hudson River (which I seem to remember might have even been the day before, incredibly) and also to tell the douchebags from Jersey they wouldn't be needed either.

These Neoliberal, red carpet-loving, cheesy, self-absorbed, marginally talented frauds represent the worst of this country and its spirit.

up
0 users have voted.
—

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by UntimelyRippd on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 6:41pm

@Mark from Queens

up
0 users have voted.
—

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:09pm
Mark from Queens's picture

@UntimelyRippd
played some shows with him.

But in terms of camaraderie with a fellow radical, I'd look to these two:

As much as I admire some of Springsteen's stuff and especially his anti-Wall St album "The Wrecking Ball" (which I want to like more than I do because of the lyrics, but the music leaves me flat) I don't see him ever taking a really big stand, as Waters has with this film:

"The Occupation of the American Mind"

up
0 users have voted.
—

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:30pm
Amanda Matthews's picture

@Mark from Queens
year. So amazing.

up
0 users have voted.
—

I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Submitted by Anja Geitz on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:39pm
Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

I relished thinking of the moment when campaign operatives had to call the fireworks company to pack up their wares in the Hudson River

I relished thinking of the poor schmuck who had a bottle thrown at his head when he asked her what they were going to do about her concession speech. At least that's WHAT HAPPENED in my mind. Hahahaha!

up
0 users have voted.
—

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Submitted by detroitmechworks on Sat, 09/16/2017 - 11:06am
detroitmechworks's picture

@Mark from Queens His influence was much more Blues, and I always felt he deserved more attention. Same thing with the Drummer, Torres, who's a much better musician than Jon's songwriting.

Course, nearly every song I like by them was either co-written or heavily features Sambora's voice. So, YMMV. Smile

(Yeah, I admit my fanboy is showing a bit. But then, nobody bitches as much as a real fan... Smile )

up
0 users have voted.
—

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 4:59pm
snoopydawg's picture

What did this person get wrong when he said "that the crime bill created a culture of mass incarceration"?
It did just that, but she's too ignorant to admit it.

They “didn’t want to talk about developing a policy agenda,” she complains. “One was singularly focused on getting me to accept personal responsibility for having supported policies, especially the crime bill that my husband signed in 1994, which he claimed created a culture of mass incarceration.”

Common Dreams also published this article. The commentary on this was excellent. I like this one because I'm this cynical:

Hillary doesn't get it

"It is my sincere opinion that the re-emergence of Hillary into the national media & blogosphere is something arranged by the Deep State. I can think of no figure more divisive to liberals, progressives, workers, minorities, & the left than Hillary. A small, sincere cadre believes in her, despite all evidence, and are in fact immune to any evidence as to her true nature. But like Trump voters, the more you criticize Hillary, the more defensive they get, attributing pretty much everything to sexism or racism or some other ‘ism.’ Hence, Hillary, by her mere appearance, causes logical allies to fight amongst themselves. And so The Man, Mr Deep State Himself, is twirling his moustache, rubbing his fingers together, and smiling."

And this one:

IMHO, it’s just as sexist to vote FOR someone solely (or primarily) because of his or her gender as it is to vote AGAINST someone solely (or primarily) because of his or her gender . . . (Not that “voting” really matters any more – it’s all a charade carried out by the powers-that-be to keep the cattle from stampeding.)

Another comment I read stated:

Hillary is the only candidate who thought all she had to do was show up at the convention for her coranation and that the only reason she was elected to congress was because she was married to Bill.

What most people aren't aware of is that she went to some of the parties after Trump was sworn in.
Remember the other pictures of the Clintons and the Trumps partying together.
Then there's the rumors about Bill asking Trump to run in the first place so that Hillary would be able to waltz into her coranation.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 5:05pm
snoopydawg's picture

This is another excellent article about Hillary's PUMAs being back in action.

The revenge of the PUMAs

The Clintons Have Weaponized Their Following and Have the Future of the Democratic Party in Their Sites

How it used to be
The Clintons were the ones that decide “whose turn” it was. They monopolized the Democratic Party. It had been that way since Team Clinton blew into DC from Arkansas leading the Democratic Leadership Council. The Koch-funded and Dixiecrat-lead DLC came in with the express purpose of moving the Democratic Party leadership away from Labor and Civil Rights concerns and into the hands of corporate donors. It worked.

The Clintons held the purse strings; they had the power. If you wanted to rise in the ranks of the Democratic Party, you kissed the ring. The Clinton ring. Leaders and free thinkers were quickly weeded out. Cutthroat loyalists and corporate lobbyists were placed in positions of power within the party. If you weren’t a “team player,” then you were exiled. This arrangement was not a meritocracy by any means. You could continuously lose or fail. None of that mattered, as long as you were loyal. Competence wasn’t even a concern. Fealty to the Clintons and their rightward agenda was the key to fame and fortune.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by dkmich on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 6:22pm

@snoopydawg

the Clinton, Obama, and Roberts primary. OMG, they were vicious. Funny you should mention them in relation to 2016. As I watched the MO of the Hillarybots, the PUMAs were all I could think of.

up
0 users have voted.
—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 9:45pm
snoopydawg's picture

@dkmich
wouldn't vote for Hillary because of her Iraq war vote, but are now some of her viscous supporters?
Even after she said that she would create a no fly zone over Syria, said that she'd nuke Iran if they threatened Israel and her many foreign policy statements, they apparently didn't think that she was wrong for this country.

From all the fighting we did during the health care debates to now voting for a candidate who said that universal health care will never, ever happen. This is just one of her issues that bothers me.
Even Kos wrote a few diaries and opinion pieces and said that Hillary was too much of a Clinton democrat. This was written in 2006 and after 10 years he jumps on board with her.
SMDH

up
0 users have voted.
—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by Bollox Ref on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 5:19pm
Bollox Ref's picture

What Happened is a sordid book, petulant and spiteful.

Just about sums up HRC and her fellow travellers.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Submitted by dkmich on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 6:24pm

I'm sure Russia and the Berniebros will be responsible for all of her bad book reviews. The more she talks, the more people don't like her. I am not happy to have Trump, but I am still glad she lost.

up
0 users have voted.
—

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Submitted by Amanda Matthews on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:40pm
Amanda Matthews's picture

@dkmich @dkmich
I was really forward to the darn things.

Amazon removes one-star reviews from Hillary Clinton's new book

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/668604001/

The reviews are almost ALWAYS better than the damn book.

up
0 users have voted.
—

I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 7:56pm
gulfgal98's picture

which was written prior to or about the same time this one was published. Right before I went to publish, the site went down. Frustrated, I went out for a couple of hours before publishing my own essay without reading this one.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 9:51pm
snoopydawg's picture

@gulfgal98

Both essays have different things in them and come at this from a different direction.

Audible has her book for sale and she's the narrator. Can you imagine what listening to her for almost 17 hours? I shudder just thinking about it.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Sat, 09/16/2017 - 2:10pm
gulfgal98's picture

@snoopydawg is grating to me. Ugh.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Arrow on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 8:04pm
Arrow's picture

Simple and direct...

up
0 users have voted.
—

I want a Pony!

Submitted by snoopydawg on Fri, 09/15/2017 - 9:54pm
snoopydawg's picture

@Arrow

The author points out that What Happened isn't a question, it's a statement. This makes it sound like fact, not fiction which it is.

up
0 users have voted.
—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.