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Roger Simon posts on why Hillary Clinton is bombing.
Which leads me to the deeper reason the country is sleeping through Hillary’s book and it’s not just because it’s hugely over long and therefore a totally un-green waste of paper and trees (although that’s true). Most people know she’s basically dishonest, a prevaricator. Even liberals, though they won’t readily admit it, know this. Who can forget her blaming her husband’s compulsive philandering on the “great, right-wing conspiracy”? If they only had such power. Or the dim-witted claims of being under fire when she hadn’t been (at least Geraldo makes a show of ducking) and, more recently, the banshee-cry of “What difference does it make?” concerning the deaths of our people in Benghazi? The Benghazi lies are actually exponential. (I’m not even going to go back to Whitewater, the miracle quick killing on the stock market, the mysterious Rose Law Firm bill and all the rest.)
But is the cause of this lying ideological — the ends even roughly justifying the means? In truth, I think not. Years ago, as a college girl, she may have had an attraction for Saul Alinsky, but in the intervening time that has been overwhelmed and, for the most part, forgotten in a welter of blind, unremitting ambition of the financial and power sort. Hillary’s not a socialist, not a Marxist, not a capitalist, not a libertarian, not anything. There’s nothing authentic about her, no there there. It’s hard to know what Hillary believes anymore. She’s so disingenuous she probably fools herself. No wonder she got so upset when being questioned about her “evolving” position on gay marriage. She undoubtedly was having trouble remembering what she had said when and why. It’s all situational. No one can — not even she — remember what she did as secretary of State except fly around on planes. …
Now for the feel good story of the year, Edward Klein’s new book outlines the jealous feud between the two leading Dem families.
Outwardly, they put on a show of unity — but privately, the Obamas and Clintons, the two power couples of the Democrat Party, loathe each other.
“I hate that man Obama more than any man I’ve ever met, more than any man who ever lived,” Bill Clinton said to friends on one occasion, adding he would never forgive Obama for suggesting he was a racist during the 2008 campaign.
The feeling is mutual. Obama made excuses not to talk to Bill, while the first lady privately sniped about Hillary.
On most evenings, Michelle Obama and her trusted adviser, Valerie Jarrett, met in a quiet corner of the White House residence. They’d usually open a bottle of Chardonnay, catch up on news about Sasha and Malia, and gossip about people who gave them heartburn.
Their favorite bête noire was Hillary Clinton, whom they nicknamed “Hildebeest,” after the menacing and shaggy-maned gnu that roams the Serengeti. …
… Lately, Bill Clinton has become convinced that Obama won’t endorse Hillary in 2016. During a gathering at Whitehaven, guests overheard Bill talking to his daughter Chelsea about whether the president would back Joe Biden.
“Recently, I’ve been hearing a different scenario from state committeemen,” Clinton said. “They say he’s looking for a candidate who’s just like him. Someone relatively unknown. Someone with a fresh face.
“He’s convinced himself he’s been a brilliant president, and wants to clone himself — to find his Mini-Me.
“He’s hunting for someone to succeed him, and he believes the American people don’t want to vote for someone who’s been around for a long time. He thinks that your mother and I are what he calls ‘so 20th century.’ He’s looking for another Barack Obama.”
Hillary Clinton has talked herself into another corner. Rich Lowry has the first part of the story.
We haven’t learned much new about Hillary Clinton on her book tour except that she mistakes herself for a version of Norma Rae.
First, during an interview in her well-appointed Washington, D.C., home with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, she said she and Bill left the White House “dead broke,” although they always made better potential subjects for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous than for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
Next, in an interview with the Guardian, she seemed to suggest that she and Bill aren’t among the “truly well off,” and said that no one could possibly resent their wealth since they earned it “through dint of hard work.”
And so they did — the hard work of building political careers for themselves, and then, when the time came, profiting massively off them. As Hillary put it in her walk-back of the “dead broke” remark, she and Bill had different “phases” in their lives. One phase involved climbing into the White House and incurring stupendous legal bills in fending off various scandals. The other has involved getting showered with money. …
John Hayward has more on the Guardian interview.
Hillary Clinton keeps doubling down on her claims to be “dead broke” after leaving the White House – one of the biggest unforced errors ever committed at the early stages of a run for the White House. She becomes more of a laughingstock every time she tries to “clarify” those comments, but her ego – and her crude sense of how she needs to control the narrative and keep herself from getting painted into the dreaded “out-of-touch rich elitist” corner – won’t allow her to let it drop.
The latest lawn full of rakes awaited her in a generally friendly interview from the UK Guardian, …
… This is the passage from the interview that brightened CNN’s morning with giggles:
And money? What about money? Bill and Hillary have reportedly made more than $100m since they left the White House in 2001. Yet that didn’t stop Hillary complaining to Diane Sawyer on ABC News that the couple had emerged from highest office “dead broke”, a comment that ranks for its tone deafness alongside John McCain’s admission in the 2008 presidential election that he couldn’t remember how many houses he owned.
America’s glaring income inequality is certain to be a central bone of contention in the 2016 presidential election. But with her huge personal wealth, how could Clinton possibly hope to be credible on this issue when people see her as part of the problem, not its solution?
“But they don’t see me as part of the problem,” she protests, “because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” she says, letting off another burst of laughter. If past form is any guide, she must be finding my question painful.
You’ve got to love that spiteful, envious little dig she throws in about not naming names. Classic Hillary, and a big part of the reason why I continue to doubt she’s even going to be the Democrat nominee in 2016, no matter what conventional wisdom says. She’s just plain off-putting. …