Taibbi reviews new 2016 Hillary post-mortem, and it's not pretty

I'll leave you with a link and this one gem:

"The Clinton campaign in 2016, for instance, never saw the Bernie Sanders campaign as being driven by millions of people who over the course of decades had become dissatisfied with the party. They instead saw one cheap stunt pulled by an illegitimate back-bencher, foolishness that would be ended if Sanders himself could somehow be removed.

"Bill and Hillary had wanted to put [Sanders] down like a junkyard dog early on," Allen and Parnes wrote. The only reason they didn't, they explained, was an irritating chance problem: Sanders "was liked," which meant going negative would backfire.

Hillary had had the same problem with Barack Obama, with whom she and her husband had elected to go heavily negative in 2008, only to see that strategy go very wrong. "It boomeranged," as it's put in Shattered."

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Pricknick's picture

up
0 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick - thanks for providing a better link. Mine was a copy paste error. Sad

up
0 users have voted.

Love ya, mean it

If you must read it, call your local library--if no one has privatized it or sold it at auction yet.

Hillary says she's done running. If so, there's no need to know why another of her campaigns was "close, but no cigar." Take her at her word. If she's not running again, there's no reason to show any interest in her or this book, which book seems to have no unusual insights anyway. There are enough post mortems on the net and on this board. Do not act as though this book about Hillary matters.

With all respect to everyone, Hillary's reason for running was perfectly clear. And that clarity was part of her problem. Her reason was that she had been in politics since at least age 13, when she claims she canvassed for Nixon; and she very much wanted to be the first woman President. She wanted it enough to say or do anything to get there. Problem was, not enough voters outside blue states wanted to vote for her simply because she wanted to be President or simply because she was the Democratic candidate or simply because she wasn't Donald J. Trump. "Selfish" voters are beginning to wake up to the fact that elections should be about them, not parties or candidates. About flocking time, too.

You want to win? Earn the trust of voters by accomplishments, not job titles, so they will admire and trust you and believe you. Then, tell them what you will do for them.

up
0 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

@HenryAWallace not as much about Hillary, but how her campaign represented the state of Democratic party politics. It is a party filled with self important people who believe themselves to be better than the voters and see absolutely zero need to develop and believe in policies to meet the needs of the people. My take from Taibbi's article is just how devoid of substance the Clinton campaign was. This is an exact mirror of the Democratic party in the last several elections. It is also the route that the Democratic party has decided to take in the future.

I look no further than the sage the leader of TOP who recently proclaimed that the Democrats do not need policy positions in 2018. According to the all knowing and seeing Markos Moulitsis is the only message the Democrats need in 2018 is "NO." That should fire up and inspire the voters to get out and vote for Democrats. Yeah, buddy! Bad

And why is all of this public postmortem of the Clinton campaign important? Because the real cause of Trump's ascension to the Presidency and the continuing hemorrhaging of Democratic party seats at all levels of government is the feckless and corrupt Democratic party. Hillary Clinton is the embodiment of that fecklessness and corruption. This is also why they are doing everything they can to rehabilitate her image. They do not want to admit they are wrong and they do not want to change on whit. They would rather lose than give up their big donor money.

BTW, I do not believe Hillary is finished trying to run for office. The Clintons need to be in a position of power in order to keep the big donor money flowing into the foundation. Maybe being the mayor of NYC will be enough. And then there is Chelsea whom they are grooming for public office grifting.

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

Bollox Ref's picture

@gulfgal98
Have you seen this article:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/please-god-stop-chelsea-clinton-f...

This bit made me laugh out loud.... disturbing the cats!!

What comes across with Chelsea, for lack of a gentler word, is self-regard of an unusual intensity. And the effect is stronger on paper. Unkind as it is to say, reading anything by Chelsea Clinton—tweets, interviews, books—is best compared to taking in spoonfuls of plain oatmeal that, periodically, conceal a toenail clipping.

(Edited)

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

CB's picture

@Bollox Ref
is mentioned, my cat, who is an avid follower of C99 and sometimes logs in before me, horks up a huge hairball and I have to clean up the mess.

up
0 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

@Bollox Ref I want to puke at the entitled daughter.

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

@gulfgal98

The book is not a biography of Hillary, but it is about Hillary. It's not about the campaign of anyone else.

"Shattered" is a double meaning reference to her glass ceiling comment of 2008 and the film shown at her nomination that showed the glass ceiling of male presidents shattering as became visible. And of course, it also refers to how she and her campaign were shattered by her loss. Clever name, I thought.

I would love to see people treat it as irrelevant because I think low sales will reflect poorly on her. Someone released a book about Hillary's losing campaign and Americans yawned and went about things that mattered to them. Conversely, if sales are good, it shows interest in Hillary did not abate when she lost.

I don't think the book will says anything new about Democrats or Hillary anyway. Game Change exposed a lot about how the Clintons operate and her campaigns operate. As my post said, there's tons of other, free info on the internet people.

If someone is dying to read it, as my prior post said, borrow it from a friend or the public library. Just don't help make it seem like Hillary still has "juice."

I think she many run again, too. If I were sure she weren't running again, I would have said, "She won't run again." Instead, I posted "Take her at her word," the phrase she used when asked if she believed Obama was a Christian. Not yes, or "of course I do," but "He says he is and I take him at his word."

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace

The Stones pretty much have it covered...

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal as a long time fan I have seen them several times starting in the 70s. The last time I saw them here in Chgo. a few years ago my wife and I were really excited we got a hold of front row seats through a friend of a friend, Anyway we get to our seats and sitting in the first seat of the row is fucking Nancy Pelosi and two body guards standing in the aisle next to her and another guy sitting next to her. We also got to watch Mick Jagger lean over and sing part of a song to her and she didn't even flinch, It was a strange sight. To this day I still wonder if he knew who she was and why she was there.

up
0 users have voted.

@pro left

All things considered, I kinda wonder if Nancy Pelosi '...knew who she was and why she was there. ...' She never seems to know anything except that she's a capitalist who lives on word salad.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

mimi's picture

@Ellen North @JtC
how can you still see the numbers of the comments? JtC had a version earlier on that you could see under each comment the little number of where the comments is at within the thread. I think they were in small print under someone's avatar. I can't see that anymore and miss it. It was very convenient to have. You seem to be able to still see those?

I hope JtC will bring those little numbers back and make them visible again.

up
0 users have voted.

@mimi @mimi

Actually, I can't see those numbers any more, either, mimi. But you're right, they were sometimes handy, especially on long threads.

Edit: sorry, guess you were actually trying to reach JtC - I didn't even see that, lol!

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North

up
0 users have voted.

@pro left
Thank you for this great vignette about Pelosi. And with all due respect to Ellen for her perfect response, I have to say that with all the frustration that I have about Nancy Pelosi, as a San Francisco Bay Area Italian American woman of her generation, my feeling is that if she was at a Stones' concert in the front row, it's because she wanted to be there.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@pro left Pelosi as a Stones fan? The mind reels.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Possibly for the optics and to make people think there might be some human left in her somewhere? Maybe there is, and only music soothes the profiteering beast?

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
Thank you so much for this video. Just wonderful.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Linda Wood You're welcome!
A war zone and in some ways a death trap, I guess, New York City in the 70s. But so fucking alive! Some of that seems to be gone.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Mark from Queens's picture

@HenryAWallace but mostly on the hope that they'll patronize their local libraries more instead, as I think you've suggested elsewhere. But the other side of it is that I wouldn't mind if more people got to see inside a deeply fraudulent political system that props up monomaniacal deadbeats with the help of all and sundry in the Beltway and the MSM, as long as the paychecks and party invitations keep coming in for them.

Because the system in no way has anything to do with them serving the people; it's all about self-centered opportunism while at the same time being beholden to Big Money interests, and I don't think enough really grasp the extent of that. The characters involved, as Taibbi explained, see elections as "dueling contests of 'whip-smart' organizers who know how to get the cattle to vote the right way. If someone wins an election, the inevitable Beltway conclusion is that the winner had better puppeteers." People should also come away dissuaded from thinking Her was some kind of feminist struggle to break the glass ceiling. All of these myths need to be shattered. If the book does not accomplish that then I'd say outright, don't buy it.

In this sense her comradeship with fellow Neoliberal Nightmare from NY, Andy Boy Cuomo, can't be denied. Both are detested and there only because of family relations and misguidedly thought of as hopefuls by a clueless, hermetically-sealed party apparatus utterly disconnected from the public. Both have been sold to the public by powerful public relations firms as destined stars, only to be the complete duds. The proof is in the pudding, as they say...

And in the most misleading headline ever, The NY Times claimed "Sales of Hillary Clinton’s New Book Are Off to a Slow Start." In Sept 2016, with the candidates about to face off for the final stretch, they must have gotten what in retrospect had to be the first death knell clanging in their ears. $hills couldn't even sell 3,000 books in her first week. As the article explains there's usually months of media blitz prior and the first week sales are by far the strongest, usually accounting for a 1/3 of total sales.

Given that fraudsters can't sell their stories when the public smells a rat, in a way I would hope a book exposing Her in all her venality, entitlement, pettiness, and ugliness would sell a ton. These Neoliberal vermin need to be knocked out for good.

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

@Mark from Queens to the government who was reading what books. I took that as a big STOP sign. I did read a book critical of Bush, but only at a table. I didn't dare check it out and be on a government enemies list. I will admit that the library put up several large signs warning people of this "anti-terrorist" law.

up
0 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Mark from Queens's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness
Vonnegut had this to say in 2004 during the post-9/11 hysteria of Big Brother/fascist Bush fear-mongering that gripped the nation:

I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury’s great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451° Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury’s novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

Personally, when I'm told I can't or shouldn't do something, especially by "authorities," the wheels being turning to explore every angle and reason to buck them.

Related to this, I remember having lunch in the W. Village around the time of Vonnegut's piece, and struck up a friendly conversation with a tourist couple who were looking for where John Lennon had lived in the 70's. By and by they felt compelled to express their concern that I was wearing a political t-shirt of some sort, maybe an anti-Bush shirt then, and that my my questioning the government could subject me to some kind of unwanted scrutiny. They genuinely thought that I was endangering myself in some way, in such a climate, they said. Nah, it's just the opposite, I said. If we are not willing to stand in public with signs of dissent, express our dissatisfaction and firmly question the decisions of authority, then we may as well pack it in. We need to inspire one another, that not only is it ok to take a contrarian position but that we need to let others know that it is preferable to do so also. Because as is always the case, the dissenter is in the vanguard for the moment, only to be taken up into the mainstream as short while after.

As Twain said about this,

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them.

I say take out as many books, and as radical as possible, any time you want. I know I have. We need to send a message, whenever possible, that we won't be cowed.

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

@Mark from Queens

Yes! It's when we first begin to be afraid to speak up that it becomes most imperative to do so.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

boriscleto's picture

@Mark from Queens He of the gondola to nowhere...

http://www.newyorkupstate.com/news/2017/01/cuomos_cny_budget_includes_go...

up
0 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

@HenryAWallace .

But how can we miss you, Hillary, if you never leave?

If not, we could use one right about now.:wink:

up
0 users have voted.
CS in AZ's picture

@HenryAWallace

Sorry, HW, but I did buy it (ebook version, I sure wouldn't pay hardcover price for it) and I'm reading it now, I've not gotten that far yet, but so far very little is about Hillary or the Clintons. It's about the 2016 campaign, and all of the dem party "operatives" who were part of it. And who will continue to run dem party campaigns in the future, whether or not we ever see another Clinton on a ballot. It's about the party, and the big names who control it.

It is very inside baseball re politics, of course, which is obviously not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm finding it interesting and learning about the people who run the games. It's not even "about Hillary" in fact... now that you say this, it strikes me how aloof and apart from it all she is, even in the book. She is a distant, mysterious character who the campaign staff are theoretically trying to get elected, but for many of them it seems they are there only because it's their job de jour. And they will be moving on to other jobs and campaigns.

There's also a lot about Bernie's campaign and his people as well. Im just getting to the chapter called Feeling the Bern.

I'm also liking it as an antidote to all the excuses and false blame bullshit we've been subjected to lately. That's why Clinton partisans hate it. It doesn't peddle their approved talking points, and instead reveals the incompetence that drove the whole thing off a cliff.

I think a realistic countering of their dishonest narrative of what happened is worthwhile, if for no other reason than to help bury the popular myth of the Clintons' great political skilz. Which obviously hasn't yet died the death it deserves.

I'm not saying read it or don't, but as someone who is reading it, I think your assessment of it is off base. People should buy it, if they have an interest in the subject.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@gulfgal98
they are running things behind the scenes to make sure that the DP doesn't move too far to the left. That's why they installed Perez as head of the DNC.

And if the Clintons were gone would parts of the DP still be called Clinton democrats or partisans?
They are very upset that Bernie isn't playing their game and he's doing what he thinks is best for us, not the DP donors.

Senator Bernie Sanders continues to be a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party establishment. Despite a constant flow of attacks from Clinton partisans and Democratic Party calls for “unity,” Sanders has maintained some distance from new DNC Chair Tom Perez on their tour across the country.

A thorn in their side just because he doesn't want to be part of the establishment and endorse just anyone who has a D after their name.

Establishment Rages at Bernie Sanders for Insisting Being a Democrat Isn’t Enough
http://observer.com/2017/04/bernie-sanders-refuses-to-endorse-jon-ossoff...

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.

Alligator Ed's picture

The review is excellent. I would like to emphasize a few points, even though most of c99 readers will have appreciated.

The beleaguered Clinton staff spent the better part of two years trying to roll this insane tautology – "I have a reason for running because no one runs without a reason" – into the White House.

Actually Taibbi was much too kind. Hillary is a self-aggrandizing sociopath who still to this day believes
A. She can do no wrong.
B. The Presidency BELONGS to her, sort of the divine right of Queens.

Yet those sources tell of a campaign that spent nearly two years paralyzed by simple existential questions: Why are we running? What do we stand for?

This is still an unsettled issue with the Democratic establishment.

Democratic Party intelligentsia

is a ludicrous oxymoron. Again, Taibbi was being too kind.

Most [Beltway insiders] don't see elections as organic movements within populations of millions, but as dueling contests of "whip-smart" organizers who know how to get the cattle to vote the right way. If someone wins an election, the inevitable Beltway conclusion is that the winner had better puppeteers.

This means that the establishment of either duopolistic party doesn't give a crap about the citizenry. They want power. They want money. They want the self-congratulatory glory of being with a winner.

If the ending to this story were anything other than Donald Trump being elected president, Shattered would be an awesome comedy

Damn! If only he hadn't snuck in to spoil the comedy.

up
0 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

@Alligator Ed

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

@Alligator Ed Good job, Alligator Ed.
I agree with HenryWallace about not buying the book, and with gulfgal about using it as a treatise to show the total uselessness of the corrupt Democratic Party to people in the world that haven't figured it out yet.
There are people who will buy the book to figure out how to better present her for her next run.
The less said about Her, the better.

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp I'm interested in the book because to me it sounds like more about the losing campaign and tactics than it does about Hillary or painting her as the hero. It surely does NOT sound like they are painting her as a hero.

As someone who has worked on many campaigns and turned down a chance to for employment on the (not-so) inevitable one's campaign, my interest is personal.

But the most important reason to consider reading it (hopefully at a library for free) is to understand what we are up against in the DC establishment. You know that whole "know your enemies" thing? Yeah, that. I'm certainly not going to buy a book that puts money in the Clintons' pockets, which this book does not appear to. If someone has specific information to the contrary, that would be more useful than ALL CAPS demands to not buy or read the book.

up
0 users have voted.

Love ya, mean it

@cjeagles If I were active in campaigns, especially paid to do it, I would be reading everything I could lay my hands on about the failed campaign, and about the Trump winning one.
I was looking at the whole issue from an outsider's viewpoint.
I know damn well Hillary's fans will ignore the book or read it and call it out as bullshit. Comey...no...RUSSIA...no...BERNIE all caused Her to lose, and White Guys.
I hope the book, whether purchased or checked from a library, will educate people to run candidates who have a stated agenda to improve the lives of all Americans.

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981