HRC Gets ”Caught Trying”- Amanda S. Green

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*Look, I told her that reading this book was bad for her mental health, and yet, Amanda S. Green PERSISTED.  Do try to buy her a drink, okay.  She’s taking a massive bullet for the team. – SAH*

HRC Gets ”Caught Trying”- Amanda S. Green

Welcome to the next installment of “How much more can Amanda read before she loses her mind?” Yes, I am continuing to plow through Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, What Happened. No, that isn’t a misprint. She forgot to put the question mark at the end of the title. That is the first of many head scratchers where this book is concerned. I recommend the book to anyone who is a fan of HRC — or to those who want to see someone do the literary version of the “Side Step” from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG75FJkjr8

The next chapter of her book is, ironically, titled “Get Caught Trying.” This is her attempt to explain why she ran for president. Of course, in a chapter that is supposed to be dedicated to explaining her rationale in once again tossing her hat into the political ring, she spends a great deal of time attacking President Trump for actions taken after the election. Not that it’s surprising.

I ran for President because I thought I’d be good at the job. I thought that of all the people who might run, I had the most relevant experience, meaningful accomplishments, and ambitious but achievable proposals, as well as the temperament to get things done in Washington. (Pg. 39)

We obviously made a mistake in not electing her. Bad Middle America. Evil conservatives and libertarians. How could we not have elected such a humble, dedicated public servant?

Surprisingly, she comments on one of the reasons why she didn’t win. Not that she counts it as a reason — yet. Instead, she identifies it as one of the challenges facing the country, a challenge she felt she could meet and overcome.

Our diversity was an advantage, spurring creativity and vitality, but rapid social and economic change alienated people who thought too much was happening too fast and felt left out. (Ps. 39)

Yet, what did she do to ease those concerns? Nothing. Instead, she played on them, painting many of those who felt alienated and left out as rednecks, bigots, and worse. So where was her understanding and determination to bring the country together where they were concerned?

There are several pages dedicated to her work after leaving the State Department with the Clinton Foundation. She discusses other ventures she did as well, including various speaking engagements. We know from the election rhetoric that she was well-paid for those speeches, something she doesn’t deny. Instead, she has this to say:

I found that organizations and companies wanted me to come talk to them about my experiences and share my thoughts on the world — and they’d pay me a pretty penny to do it. . . I didn’t think many Americans would believe that I’d sell a lifetime of principle and advocacy for any price. . .That was a mistake. Just because many former government officials have been paid large fees to give speeches, I shouldn’t have assumed it would be okay for me to do it. Especially after the financial crisis of 2008-2009, I should have realized it would be bad “optics” and stayed away from anything having to do with Wall Street. (Pp 38-40)

Wait, what? This woman who believed herself to be the best qualified person to be President, didn’t see any problem with taking huge sums of money from Wall Street and others before running for office?

Then there’s the bit about a lifetime of principle and advocacy. I hate to say this, Hill — can I call you Hill? — your principles are not the same as most voters. Most of those who go to the election booth to their votes have integrity, something you proved time and again you lack. Without digging out every time she broke her word, I’ll simply say one thing: Benghazi.

Then there’s the whole bit about not thinking she would be attacked for what she did or said. I guess she was suffering amnesia when she wrote these pages because all she’d have to do was remember what they did to Sarah Palin. The Democrats did their best to make everything that came out of Gov. Palin’s mouth look foolish or like a lie or worse. Why in the world would Clinton expect anything different? Surely she’d paid enough attention during Bill’s campaigns, not to mention her own losing campaign against Obama, to anticipate the attacks.

Of course, she confirmed her selective memory on the next page when she talked about what a wonderful job Obama did when the Administration “reacted swiftly to shore up our public health defenses and support Ebola response efforts in West Africa.” (Pg 48) I don’t know what world she was living on during the Ebola scare but here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it was our local and state health agencies and government that reacted to deal with the scare. The delay in putting precautions in place to prevent travelers who were carrying the virus resulted in not only one man’s death here but also saw two nurses contracting the disease. They have lost their careers. The Feds were late to the game, not that it surprised any of us. But to see Clinton talking about how great the Administration was in dealing with the issue in Africa, and leaving out the failures here at home, is bad enough. Her smug condemnation about what could be seen as reasonable fears of the virus being used as a weapon against us by ISIS is another.

Then, I guess because she needed time to remember what actually happened in Hillary-world, she spends a couple of pages attacking the Republican Party, in particular the Tea Party faction, and condemning them for doing all they could to destroy the government and the country. Even when she recounts a discussion Bill had with a long-time Democrat in Arkansas, she doesn’t get it. This old timer, a non-politician, told Bill he was going to vote Republican. He knew the Republicans wouldn’t do anything for him but, as far as he could tell, the Democrats had done nothing for him in all their years in office. Then he went on to say:

And at least the Republicans won’t do anything to us. The Democrats want to take away my gun and make me go to a gay wedding. (Pg. 50)

Think about that. A life-long Democrat recognized that his own party was not working for what he saw as important values. He felt alienated by them and, because of that, would vote for the other party. But Clinton did not listen and understand what he said.

Finally, 12 pages after first broaching the subject of why she ran for President, she gets back to the question. After telling us about all the good she had been  able to do with the Clinton Foundation, after talking about all those speeches she had given to share her knowledge and experience, this is her response: “It was a chance to do the most good I would ever be able to do.” (Pg 52)

You would think, reading the next few pages that she and Obama were blossom buddies. According to her, we have him to blame for her making the decision to run. Well, he and Bill. “I was convinced that both Bill and Barack were right when they said I would be a better President than anyone else out there.” (Pg 55) Better than the sitting Vice-President. Better than anyone else in the entire country. Modesty is not one of her virtues.

The more I read, the more convinced I am that she was anything but the best person for the job. I’m also convinced she needed a a competent content editor. If the purpose of the chapter was to tell us why she chose to run — again — for President, she needed to do that. Instead, she slipped and her paranoia and anger with the result of the election shone through. Why else would she deviate from her topic to throw attacks at President Trump for things that happened after the election? If anyone ever needs to know what button to push to send her over the edge, all you have to do is mention Trump and then step back. She will eventually shoot herself in the foot.

The audacity of the woman shines through when she writes, “We Methodists are taught to ‘do all the good you can.’ I knew that if I ran and won, I would do a world of good and help an awful lot of people.” (Pg. 54) Wow. If she believed that, she completely ignored what that shopkeeper from Arkansas had to say, what she had to say earlier in the chapter about people feeling isolated and left behind. These were the people she condemned and made fun of. These were also the people who helped keep her from being elected. Did she learn her lesson? Hell no.

And what about her claim of doing a world of good and help an awful lot of people? Sorry, Hill, I have a hard time believing you, especially after Benghazi and how you lied and lied and lied again until you could lie no more. Even now, you have failed to accept one bit of responsibility for what happened to our people there. So why should anyone trust you with their lives and the futures of their children?

As an aside, I think the book is really starting to do damage to my brain. I actually had fun reading this section. It is time to go buy some good booze and I’ll use the donations some of you sent to help do so (and many, many thanks to each of you who donated. It means a lot to know you’ve enjoyed the posts that much).

*Send the woman a drink-SAH*

328 thoughts on “HRC Gets ”Caught Trying”- Amanda S. Green”

  1. If we encourage Amanda to finish this book by sending her drinks, we risk turning her into an alcoholic.:-D

      1. Would it put me out of my misery? 😉

        That’s really not a problem because the book is so bad, I can’t read much at a time. That cuts down on the alcohol consumption.

    2. Hell, I just skimmed this and that Sidecar was just not enough. And now I’m out of brandy. Alright, there is the cognac, but… let us not be wasteful.

      2. Don’t read more than a chapter at a time. You’ll run out of the good stuff and be swilling Listerine, rubbing alcohol and antifreeze to dull the pain.

        2. I manage a few pages at a time. You guys are getting basically a chapter or so at a time because that is all I can stand to look back over, even with notes in the margins and highlighting.

          2. I feel like my IQ drops 10 points just reading to her drivel… Assuming she didn’t farm out the job of actually writing this out to one of her groupies, paid a pennies-on-the-dollar ghostwriting fee…

                1. There was a time when people weren’t used to be able to get good wines from anywhere outside France, Italy, and Germany. You may safely conclude that Monty Python was not aware of the Napa revolution in winemaking that was going on, and hence could not predict Australian wine ever becoming a thing.

                  (Shipping technology made a big difference too.)

                  2. And there is a huge revolution in winemaking in Texas – the Hill Country is now what Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino were, about thirty years ago.
                    Texas Wine Road – https://www.wineroad290.com/
                    My personal fave is Fredericksburg Winery’s Fredericksburg & Northern red. It’s awesome.

                    1. I think I’ve even had wine from North Dakota – and not that long ago, that was a possibility. No, not global warning, just nobody there had yet bothered.

    3. True, but I promised Sarah and I don’t want to break my word. Would you feel better if I promised to buy patchouli and flowers to put in my hair? VBEG

    4. Years ago someone came up to me at a party where I was drinking water and asked me how I could survive the party without alcohol. I am of the opinion that if you find yourself attending an activity and find yourself thinking you have to have a drink to manage it, this is tantamount to a red flag warning that you should not be drinking.

      I admire Amanda for taking this on on our behalf, don’t get me wrong. It is of great value to know what is being spun. Still, I hope she understands that it is not worth sacrificing her health.

        1. True, very true.

          Occasionally there are activities that are hard to avoid, such as certain family gatherings. Then I don’t drink while there, and excuse myself as soon as it is politely acceptable.

            1. Yes. How else are you supposed to survive the holidays?

              Take 2 shots of good tequila. Repeat as necessary.

                1. And as is (mis-?) attributed to Dorothy Parker:


                  I like to have a martini,
                  Two at the very most.
                  After three I’m under the table,
                  After four I’m under my host.

        2. Ah yes. Back when I was a single, younger, much more foolish man, I got myself hideously drunk and went home with a woman. And yes, she turned out to be a very poor choice to wake up next to late the next morning with a hangover fit to beat the band. To be honest, she probably thought the same thing of me. The only two good things out of that was a very blurred memory of what really happened, and a strong reminder to moderate my alcohol consumption.

          Oh, and fortunately I found my car still parked in the lot across from the bar.

      2. Trust me, the booze talk is just that — talk. Yeah, a drink may be had after reading it but I am cautious. I know the dangers. Not that I won’t celebrate with good booze when this series is over.

        2. And here I was allowing that “blossom buddies” must have been due to you being on your third drink by then. 😉

          1. LOL. Nope, this was written on pain pills. I managed to tear up my knee the other day. And I do NOT mix the two. I may be foolish but I”m not stupid.

            1. As a fellow gimp I strongly advise cooperating with a good physical therapist in rehabbing that joint. Relearning how to properly walk (assuming you were doing it properly before) is critical and can help you avoid a world of back pain, a world I guarantee* you do not want to explore.

              *The phrase “I guarantee” should here be read in the unparalleled patois of Justin Wilson for proper effect. While some say “laughter is the best medicine,” I guarantee you do not want to employ it for back spasms.

              1. RES, unlike some around here (glances around) I do mind my ortho doc and my physical therapist. I’ve torn this knee to hell and back too many times not to have learned that lesson. I’m just hoping to postpone the replacement as long as possible.

              3. I used to make and drink industrial grade margaritas as a muscle relaxant after a back flare. It was 50-50 if the hangover was worth the relief, but I eventually earned to be more careful in lifting. That form of muscle relaxant is now off limits. With my medications, it offends my sense of survival.

                1. A gin and tonic does make for a fine muscle relaxant during and after a long international flight, but just enough is the key.
                  Too much, and you won’t be relaxing.

      3. I don’t know. Being a dedicated introvert, a drink or two to take the edge off has helped me tolerate a good number of parties. The alternative is to just not show up. I have the added problem of being very good at faking “normal”. So a surprising number of friends over the years have completely had no idea that I am an introvert, so they read all sorts of extroverted reasons into me canceling or not showing up, when in reality it was just me not being able to muster the energy to deal with being around people that day (and not the “the Viking hates me” that they seem to always read into it).

  3. “plow through”

    Appropriate (if perhaps not intentional) phrasing for someone reading a snowjob attempt like that book… 😉

  4. I have called Jess Jackson (even years ago, before the latest “revelation” [ha]) a “Walking Credibility Gap.” This plainly shows that Hillary is a Walking Ego.

      1. One of my tiny bits of morality is avoiding the use of a certain word starting with the letter c. Also, I prefer not to insult dogs or those who might use brooms for sport – and I do not mean curling.

        1. There’s no problem using a word starting with c to describe HRC.
          In fact, there’s an entire list that seem good candidates: conniving, conspirator, confused, corrupt, calamitous, callous, contemptuous, crummy, cruddy…

            2. Crepuscular I would seriously doubt. That she’s awake at or before dawn seems unlikely. That she’s conscious at dusk given her bibulous tendencies seems impossible. Other crepuscular creatures (e,g, cats) are offended that she would be considered part of any group they are in.

  5. Chipped in a bit for the “destroyed liver” fund. I think we may need to start a “new liver” fund after this is done.
    That being said, I never knew she was a methodist. Hard to tell from all the cheating, lying, and other stuff she’s done.

    1. And I appreciate it. I’m behind getting notes out to those who donated so far — thank you soooo much stupid dog and mud and the knee I blew out.

      I had the same thought when I saw the quote about her being a Methodist and what it meant. I think I also heard the teeth of all my Methodist friends gnashing in anguish to know she identified herself with them.

      1. I suspect not so much identified as wore the label as a sop to the occasional ill informed Christian voter. Hell, if I recall correctly when Billy boy was first running she even claimed to bake cookies.

      2. Any denomination worth the attending is going to have people on the lower half of its morality arc in there. That’s why I like the Catholic Church — they explicitly recognize we’re all a bunch of screwups and have a sacrament in place to manage it.

      3. I have sat in a service with her at Foundry United Methodist in DC. If that was typical of sermons she’s heard, there’s no surprise she knows nothing about Methodism or Christianity in general. There was nothing that might prick anyone’s conscience or possibly make a donor in the least uneasy.

        From everything I know of the Wesleys, they would have found that church to have the same problems as they started the Methodist movement to cure.

          1. Yes. Methodism is becoming congregational in some ways, with different congregations more or less socially “progressive” and preachers likewise.

            1. I left the Methodist Church in disgust about 20 years ago. When the church hierarchy decided to ordain an open and practicing homosexual, despite this being a direct violation of the Book of Discipline and something that laity was overwhelmingly and strongly against.

      4. When Clinton finally owned up to private sessions with Monica Lewinsky, he made a big show of carrying a larger bible while he went to church – a Baptist church. That’s because Bill Clinton called himself a Baptist, and apparently was a member of a Southern Baptist church. So it was that at one of the SB conventions, someone tried to introduce a motion to expel Bill Clinton from the Baptists. It was patiently explained that such things are matters for the church where Clinton was a member, and the SBC had no say in such matters. The motion died without being seconded.

        And yet Hillary Clinton calls herself a Methodist. Interesting.

          1. From the stories I have been told it made a world of difference in the small south Georgia town where my Momma’s Momma was raised. But that is likely (yet another) something on which that woman probably doesn’t have the slightest idea.

            1. OTOH, I had a grandmother who was a member of a Baptist church, but would teach on occasion at a Methodist church. My parents, both Baptists, attend a Methodist church now. And I knew a Methodist minister who started out a Baptist.

              I myself am a Baptist, but I’ve become dissatisfied with the SBC. They aren’t politically liberal, but you don’t have to be politically liberal to lose focus, or to give the precepts of men the same weight as those of G_d.

              1. Odder shift for you, the pastor at the church I grew up in was Baptist growing up and became a PRESBYTERIAN preacher. 😉 Twas a bit of a culture shock both directions from all accounts.

          1. I believe that Secret Service protocols demand a minimum separation in venues subject to lightning strikes.

      5. I view the “Hillary is a Methodist” claim as equivalent to the “Nixon is a Quaker” claim of an earlier era, one with surprising echos in our own day. As Hillary resembles no other politician so closely as she does Tricky Dick, that seems uncomfortably appropriate.

        1. There’s going to be a gaussian-ish distribution on the Saints-Sinners-Scoundrels curve, and (IMHO) there’s a long tail on both ends of that for the Friends.

        2. My own personal opinion, having suffered through the Watergate episode in college, is that Nixon’s eventual disavowal by rank-and-file Republicans was due less to his countenancing burglary (all’s fair in love and politics) than by the revelation of his religious hypocrisy.
          Cussin’ Quakers are not fondly looked upon, especially one who traded on being the champion of Morality and Virtue.

    3. The Methodist Church she attended as a child and teen was where she was radicalized by one of Alinsky’s acolytes who infiltrated the church in the 60’s. She was so promising that Alinsky himself started coming there to preach his loathsome radical gospel.

    4. She grew up a Methodist. Who knows what exactly that means.

      Keep in mind that she also worked for the Goldwater campaign.

  6. Hrm.. how do I buy a MAGA hat and have it delivered to Hillary? And we arrange for someone to do that every day… for the duration?

    What, me evil?

    2. Where’s your imagination? She gets a MAGA hat one day, a tee shirt the next and so on. We even need to find a nice photo of she and Trump together, smiling and on the cocktail circuit before the campaign. We can title it “Bosom Buddies”. I think she’d love it.

      1. You are truly evil.

        Do you think we can find a picture of her at Trump’s wedding to include in this little care package?

      4. Besides, I was pondering dealing with someone (outside of family, including this one, yes) who for months has been “joking” about what I should buy him for his birthday, or Christmas, or whatever. And I’ve all but decided to truly fix his little red wagon and get him something. To be delivered to his workplace (where he make these attempted jokes). It is the Age of the Internet and you can find (almost) anything. And thus I ponder the best means of delivery of… an inflatable sheep.

        2. You might want to explore the offerings available at Grot, the shop where everything is guaranteed useless.

          Here is the company founder proving the test marketing for Donald Trump.

          1. And this commercial depicts al of the advantages and benefits which can be expected by Grot shoppers!

            Of course, it is possible that your mileage may vary.

          2. Ah yes, the wonderful Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. That is, the original British series was wonderful. There was an attempt at an Americanized version. I mistakenly tried watching it. The first episode seemed to be a word-for-word copy… and yet it just fell flat. “Hollywood” really can’t do British comedy. I am not sure that the second episode ever aired – which is likely as well if it didn’t.

            1. Same thing with Coupling: British version is very funny. American version was almost exactly the same and was awful.

            2. 1983, starring Richard Mulligan, coming off a successful run on ‘Soap.’. Six episodes. Six awful, excruciating episodes. The titles alone indicate how much a misfire it was:

              Reggie (TV Series)
              Reggie Potter
              – Once a Father
              – It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To
              – Reggie’s Warning
              – That’s Life
              – The Seduction of Reggie
              – Mark’s Girlfriend

              It is difficult to compare awfulness, but this was on a par with Bea Arthur in the John Cleese role for the American (‘Amanda’s’) version of ‘Fawlty Towers.’

              Few British comedies translate directly to American screens; they generally have too much vinegar for American palates. That they often come to us as star vehicles subject to the sweetening demanded by American stars no doubt helps poison the translation.

              1. Egad, a whole 6 episodes of that? I know I gave up after the first. Perhaps I might have attempted a bit of the second before deciding there were more pleasurable activities, such as staring blankly into space.

      5. I was thinking of lovely red, white and blue cupcakes with the letters M.A.G.A. iced on them.

        Lessee … red velvet cakes, white icing, blue lettering? Presented by a delivery person in a Donald Duck costume?

        1. I am sure that if President Trump wants to call it Christmas he will call it Christmas and let the precious snowflakes melt where they may.

    3. Based on credible reports I suspect that someone on her security detail would be delighted to leave such a little care package in some location where she could not miss it. With the place setting at breakfast, on the seat of her vehicle, under her pillow at days end, the possibilities are endless.

      1. It makes me think of the woman who sent a dream catcher she made to the Clintons when they were in the White House, and was promptly raided because it had owl feathers. Seems that’s a legal no-no. Reminded me of the poor fisherman who tried to honor Tiberius with one of his catch.

  7. Yes, I am continuing to plow through Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book, What Happened. No, that isn’t a misprint. She forgot to put the question mark at the end of the title.

    Simple. This not and was never intended to be an examination of what happened. It is a dictate from on high as to what we are to believe happened.

      1. I doubt it matters to her and her ilk if we actually believe it, we just have to accept it as the ruling narrative and act as if we did.

  9. The tittle is not a question. It’s her telling us “What Happened.”

    Amanda this is an intervention. We need you to put the book down. Self-Harm is never the answer. If you put down the book and back up. We will help you burn the book. Yes burning books is usually bad, but this is the excetion that proves the rule.

    We are here for you, but this has got to stop. If not for yourself for those you are harming with secondhand HRC stories.

    If you are woried about how expensive a specialist of the calaberned to get HRC mental contamination out of your head will cost, don’t be we have started a go fund me page in your name.

    So just remember we love you, and just want you to get better.

    1. But they say we have to suffer for our art and my art is writing. Trust me, I have never before suffered so much for it. VBG

                  1. I think there can be little doubt that the hat would have assigned her to Slytherin, although absent the ambition … Hufflepuff!

            4. Are we accepting the myth that HRC wrote this book? Dictated it, possibly, but it seems more likely that these are merely transcriptions of the besotted ravings of a deeply disturbed politician.

              Please, shed a tear for all the stenographers who gave their sanity that this book might be published. Imagine their anguish listening to that screechy voice going on and on and on and on and weep over a capitalist system that so horribly degrades working people..

        2. No way she wrote that herself. Somebody had to suffer as the ghostwriter. One can only hope it was somebody who used to think she was The Perfect, but was cured of her delusion in the process.

      4. Say … what would be the legal ramifications of writing a parody called “It Happened,” by Not Hillary Clinton, and mock everything about “What Happened?”

  10. You sound like one of those sexists who think writing books is a job instead of a coping technique for a delusional narcissist.

    🙂

  11. Regarding the Youtube link:

    I had not known Charles Durning sang and danced. (No, I have never seen The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.) So I look him up at IMDb only to discover he had been a dance instructor.

    You never know what you might discover following this blog.

    1. The Broadway production of that show were the directing and choreography debut of Tommy Tune, ten time Tony winner who is the only person to win Tony Awards in the same categories (Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical) in consecutive years (1990 and 1991), and the first to win in four categories. He has won ten Tony Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

      At a self-described five feet, eighteen and a half inches tall, Tune remains one of Broadway’s biggest stars.

    2. Here’s something else you won’t find outside this blog, unless you go waaayyy back in Texas.
      I was at Rice University in Houston in the early seventies (BLWIT hit Broadway in 1978, some years later). The Marching Owl Band aka MOB (all “amateurs” as we had no music program at the time) did a comedy half-time show featuring a local news anchor who had been a champion baton twirler at college (such things happen in Texas).
      This was during a game between Rice and Texas A&M, an excellent institution but ideologically and culturally 180 degrees from Rice (ROTC cadets v. artsy intellectuals; the STEM Aggies and Owls didn’t count either way).
      The Chicken Ranch does exist (or did at the time) and the A&M cadets were (alleged) to be among its many patrons.
      The newsy had recently done a major feature on the Ranch IIRC (it’s been awhile).
      The Band didn’t tell him that their marching formation, of which he formed the center, would be a very recognizable chicken drumstick.
      Once the Aggies grasped the meaning of the visual display, the Corps leaped onto the field, brandishing their sabers (in spirit if not literally), and chased the band into the safety of the access tunnels under the bleachers, from which they were evacuated later by the Rice Food Service delivery trucks.

      The MOB issued an apology, under threat of disbandment (heh), which consisted essentially of “We’re sorry that Aggies have no sense of humor.”
      The next week, supposedly chastend, they marched in a very bland formation: a circle reputed by the announcer to be a vanilla wafer.

      1. LOLOLOLOL. I remember that halftime performance. I friend of mine was at UH then (or close enough in time to have been at the game). Since she took great pleasure in teasing (okay, tormenting) a mutual friend who was an Aggie, it was burned in my mind. The Corps has a sense of humor (as my son found out when he was a member) but not where the Corps or TAMU is concerned.

        1. Ain’t it the truth. I have had good friends at A&M, and they got the joke, but had to keep it to themselves. I was very sad about the 1999 Bonfire Tragedy. That was one of the games I missed, not being privy to the plot despite having roommates in the MOB — who were very shaken up when they finally got home.

      1. Fun thought, FBI/DoJ seem to be pushing this, and the timing is interesting.

        How confident are you that they aren’t worried about what may come out about them, and deliberately pursuing this as a way to shut down criticism?

  14. Amanda, the next time you feel like engaging in self-abuse, why not pour yourself a nice glass of wine and take a bubble bath?

    I do have to note that Hillary expected the media to shield her (as they did to Bill and Barry before her). And they did. To the very best of their ability.
    There really isn’t any fair comparison to Sarah Palin to be made here. The media attacked her relentlessly and untruthfully. (Even the nominally Republican portions of it.)

    1. Palin was the first fight in the Republican Civil War. The elites took one look at how popular she was with the mass of the party and realized that she must be destroyed lest the party stop looking to them for guidance. They tried the same with Trump and so far haven’t been successful.

      1. Maybe first *overt* fight.
        (Dole refusing to let virtually all of the Contract with America onto the floor of the Senate, and being rewarded for this with a Presidential bid where the national Republican party actively cleared his path of challengers, looms rather large in my memory. And then defenstrating Gingrich on the flimsiest of pretexts as soon as they thought they could get away with it.)

        That said, I think you’re giving the establishment too much credit for thinking things through.
        What I saw, was an emotional response of revulsion. Sure, she might have been the most popular governor in the country. Sure, she might have successfully fought against corruption in an infamously corrupt state. Sure, she had more charisma in spades. Sure, she was a Horatio Algiers character crossed with Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
        And her existence absolutely horrified the chattering classes. They reacted to her like they’d gone to church and found a drag queen in the pulpit. (Ok, scratch that. A drag queen as a preacher would give them an opportunity to virtue signal at our expense. They’d jump at the chance.)
        Let me say that as someone who went to the University of Idaho, I most emphatically did not appreciate the sneering condescension applied by J-school hacks.

        1. I’m not sure I would call Dole’s Presidential run a reward. It always looked to me like Dole ran because somebody needed to and his career was pretty much over anyway. Going up against a natural politician like Clinton when the economy is going gangbusters it the political equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

          Anyway, I wouldn’t call Dole’s squashing of the CwA part of the civil war. I would say that it was more the kind of control the liberal wing had exercised over the conservative wing since at least Eisenhower. It’s that control that led to the civil war

          1. Dole’s Presidential run was also a (political) generation late for that war. I recall Reagan’s runs in ’76 and ’80 as the beginning, but do not doubt others saw it as Taft vs Ike.

            Historically, the arguments can be made that Grant’s first election was the start. From the beginning of the party there has been open war between the Radical and Establishment Republicans.

            1. There’s always been tension between the two wings of the party, but I don’t think there’s been open war. Mostly because the establishment wing has been dominant for decades, at least since Eisenhower. I think Reagan only won the nomination in 1980 because 1976 had shown how badly Watergate had weakened the establishment wing, and even then Reagan named the establishment Bush as his running mate. Many GOP voters chose Trump specifically as a “screw you” to the national party, I don’t think that’s every happened before.

              1. That would probably be because the national party had never thrown its weight behind a previous President’s brother, whose father had also been president. At that point, the nepotism and cronyism just became way too obvious.

        2. Let’s be real here, though–Palin was not ready for prime-time. Oh, they would have gone after her even if she had been, but the claim that it was purely out of emotional revulsion would be a lot easier to sustain if it weren’t for the fact that she really didn’t know what she was talking about.
          (Yes, I know the same thing is true of Obama. And? You adapt to the environment you’re in. If your candidates have to know more about each and every facet of government than their opponents do in order to be presented as intellectual equals, then you make sure that they do.)

      2. Not sure how long the Elites vs The Deplorables have been at war. Jerry Pournelle wrote of G H W Bush getting rid of the Reagan people as soon as he took office. I suspect it goes back much further than that. (Centuries?)

      3. Palin was too much of an unknown to most of the country; therefore, LIVs could swallow what the Dems were feeding them because they didn’t have a contrary knowledge. She didn’t really know how to fight back against the smears or the mocking (Tina Fey et al.). She was no less ignorant of politics than any many other former VPs, and she had considerably more practical governing experience than Obama (and I think is also smarter, despite his Ivy League credentials, just not as ruthless).
        And Palin was sabotaged by McCain’s own staff as well, don’t forget.

        Trump is a known-quantity; his “faults” were — as they say — already baked in. Plus he took whatever they dished out and threw it back at them.But even more important, after 8 years of Obama, the country was ready for him. Hilary just sealed the deal.

        2. Indeed, she was apparently very well thought of in Alaska as a governor. Suited them right down to the ground, having made a career in politics on her own, without being the spouse or spawn of an established pol. I don’t think she — or really, any of us conservative women — expected the sheer tidal wave of vitriol that came her way, or the fact that McCain’s flunkies would throw her to the wolves at the earliest opportunity.
          I often wonder – if she had the ability to look into the future and know in detail what would happen to her and her family after McCain tendered his offer as VP – if she would have accepted the offer to stand as his VP. I’d like to think she would have said not just ‘No,’ but ‘Hell no, and thank you for the consideration, you two-faced putz’ and gone on to serve as one of the nation’s most effective governors of a large state.

        3. “And Palin was sabotaged by McCain’s own staff as well, don’t forget.”

          That’s why I say that Palin was the first battle in the war. McCain probably threw her on the ticket as a sop to conservatives, but quickly realized that she was FAR more popular among the voters than he was. His ego, and his staffers’ need to remain relevant, required her destruction.

          1. Had they truly waned to assure Palin’s destruction the surest way of achieving it would have been to win the election and hang four to eight years of a McCain Administration around her neck.

            2. Couldn’t do it. All she would have had to do is keep publicly disagreeing with every RINO position. He couldn’t force her to resign, and she had / has allies too.

      4. The way I look at it, the media put the pressure on and she folded.

        Better it happen when she was a governor than if she’d made it to the presidency.

        1. It’s easy to fold when you have no support. Pretty much all of the people she would have needed to fight back actually worked for John McCain. The McCain campaign could have made a great deal of hay out of that deceptively-edited Couric interview, but that would have made Palin look good and McCain’s “friends” in the media look bad. I think McCain prioritized keeping his “Maverick” reputation over actually winning the election.

        2. Anyone who discounts the role of the dozens of fake ethics charges that Alaska law required her to pay for the defense of personally has bought a Leftist lie completely.

  16. What’s interesting, based on Amanda’s reports, is that it sounds like the Wicked Witch actually wrote that mess herself instead of just letting a ghostwriter do it.

    2. I get the feeling that after losing, she vented her rage in writing and kept spilling stuff out onto paper so much that someone said, “What? Are you writing a book?” And the idea was born. So she started looking at those vents and tidying them up marginally into topics and then added some of the “I’m just like you common people. Really!” sections, to make it marginally palatable.

    3. From what I heard right after it came out, I wondered if her ghostwriter was trolling her… but you may be right. Pity the woman, for she has zero self-awareness.

      1. “But they like me! They really, really like me! Who tricked them into voting against me?”

        She has never internalized the line about when you point your finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back at you.

          1. Keep an eye if any editor in the house which published that has some sort of unfortunate accident during the next year or so. Especially if the book doesn’t sell well. 😀

            Or if any of them suddenly moves out of the country, like decides to retire on the Australian back country or some unspecified Pacific island.

          2. A NYC Big 5 publisher/editor? They are already mad and have mainlined the koolaid. So, no change even after looking at the first draft or final draft.

            1. Plus, any editor working with HRC would be a long vetted True Believer with a certified history of proper worshipfulness.

              1. Or somebody who needs/wants the money badly enough to be able to stay in character all the time she is at work or deals with customers and people from work, while not being a true or any other kind of believer. Considering that there possibly seem to be more than a few even in Hollywood…

                Not a good way to live.

        3. … pity the editor who had to turn that into something marginally readable.

          I would think that in this case the margins are the best part. It is the part with all the words wherein the trouble lies.

  17. Our diversity was an advantage, spurring creativity and vitality, but rapid social and economic change alienated people who thought too much was happening too fast and felt left out.

    (Ps. 39)

    So her predecessor accuses those who do not support their vision for the future as bitterly holding onto their Bibles and Guns. Then she refers to them as deplorable?

    Neither are good ways to convince people to give a listen to what you have to say.

    1. When I heard the “basket of deplorables” comment, I thought, “you idiot! That’s going to backfire on you the same way the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ comment did. Have you learned nothing?”

      3. NO ONE in the Dem campaign knew beans about human nature (apparently they didn’t listen to Bill, who does; or Brazile, who has a bit of a clue, or claims she does).

        They didn’t even learn from when they managed to harness that very effect in their favor. For example, with some of Romney’s observations, to wit, “47% will never vote for me” (totally true) interpreted as dissing the undeserving poor; “binders of women” (totally innocuous) interpreted as hating women – although the MSM led the backfiring then, and the “deplorables” fought their own fight.

        Every time they turned the dial to 11, they lost another iota of their small store of credibility in my mind.

        It occurs to me that they use that technique of “demonizing the opponent” so often because it used to give results, pulling people from the center to the left because they convinced a lot of LIVs that Republicans are “hatey-hate-haters.”
        By 2016, they had already gathered all the low-hanging fruit, and the remaining independents were either less susceptible to the hype, or (as in the Rust Belt), people who basically fit in the Deplorable Basket but had been voting Dem on auto-pilot up to then.

        If the conservative Black community* ever gets enough traction, or hits a tipping point of sufficient magnitude, we’ll see the same reversal (if the GOP doesn’t do something even more stupid than usual).

        *(most are individual conversions at the moment; cf. Diamond & Silk et al. for the vocal ones, but I think there are a lot more keeping quiet about it, for the obvious reasons)

        1. “It occurs to me that they use that technique of “demonizing the opponent” so often because it used to give results …”

          Partially that, but there is another factor as well: it is a form of rain dance.

          Political campaigns are a big business, rife with hired consultants who make their nut selling apps to campaigns. For every ad commissioned and placed the consultant typically gets a percentage (similar to a kickback but not noticeably different for being traditional.) Thus the more ads run the more money flowing to the consultant. As a general rule, these consultants get paid whether or not the campaign is victorious … or make enough commissions along the way that having some bad debt to write off isn’t an entirely bad thing.

          Attack ads, like yard signs and people in Donald Duck costumes, probably do very little good. The majority of people are already committed and thus either discount the claims or drink the Kool-Aid according to their predispositions. (In my own admittedly atypical household arrival of campaign flyers generates a round of “What lies are they trying to sell us this time?” analyses.)

          But attack ads, like yard signs and people in Donald Duck costumes tend to make the candidate happy. Given the amount of time candidates spend surrounded by a bubble of supporters and shills (supporters so long as the money holds out) they are inclined to be desperate for reassurance that they haven’t spent a year eating bad meals and shouting themselves hoarse to no effect. They’ve worked themselves into frenzies despising their opponents (opponents who often, at base, support many of the same policies as the candidates because they’re all in the bidness of selling people what they already want) and thus want their opponents destroyed.

          So attack ads serve two very useful purposes. They reassure candidates that they’re “doing something” to move the electorate and they funnel campaign funds into consultants bank accounts.

          Many in the GOP base have long since recognized the problems of consultants who manage to run expensive (i.e., lucrative for the consultants and advisers) but losing campaigns. Trump with his tweets has demonstrated that advertising expenditures do not determine victory, spending about half what HRC did to win more electoral votes and almost as many ballots cast.

          So it might only be “it gets results” if by results you mean “giving the appearance of doing something” and “enriching campaign managers.”

          1. One reason Trump is so hated by political elites is that he showed how useless their campaign theater really is.

  18. This woman who believed herself to be the best qualified person to be President, didn’t see any problem with taking huge sums of money from Wall Street and others before running for office?

    She apparently still doesn’t, as she says, ‘… I should have realized it would be bad “optics” …’

    She does not consider the matter in terms of principles of right and wrong, but in terms of appearance.

    1. Exactly. In the next paragraph, she admits it was a “mistake”. Not that she actually did the speaking engagements and took money for them but that she didn’t realize the voters might have a problem with it. So, once again, she manages to put the blame on voters for — according to her — holding her to a different standard than other candidates throughout history — instead of admitting she screwed up.

        2. “History is made at night. Character is what you are inna the dark.”
          — Lord John Whorfin

          1. Lord John spake much wisdom…

            I was underwhelmed the first time I saw that movie, but it’s one of my favorites now, just for its sheer dementedness.

    2. She lives in the postmodern world, where everything is appearances and feelings, and truth is what your heart says it is. She felt very, very strongly that she should win, that she would win, and so of course, the victory was guaranteed. The arrow of history pointed her way. It was time for a woman to be president.

      Alas for her, Reality intervened.

      1. Didn’t the Progressives call themselves the “Reality Based Community” at one point?

        2. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears to me that the Progressives don’t seem to realize that this nation was founded to oppose their so-called “Progress.” Surely this is clear from the Constitution, which sets up Congress, clearly as an opponent to “Progress.” 😛

    3. This has been apparent about most politicians, but particularly the Dems in this era. Remember that Obama’s people kept bloviating about their “messaging” being the problem, rather than grasping that people didn’t like the content of the message itself.

      1. The messaging is the problem?

        What’s the matter with Kansas. And Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and …

        They never wonder if it might just be the dog food.

  19. Speaking purely as a grammarian, I think the title of the book is grammatically legitimate. The word “what” isn’t only an interrogative pronoun; it can also be a relative pronoun, one that, when used as the subject or direct object of a clause, makes it a subordinate clause. Normally such a clause would be attached to a main clause, performing the grammatical function (usually) of a noun: This is what happened, Let me tell you what happened, I don’t know what happened. But in a book title, a noun (or a noun phrase or noun clause) can be used by itself: Foundation, The Star Beast, Darkship Thieves. So this book uses the relative pronoun “what” in a noun clause that stands on its own as a noun.

    I think it’s appropriate, too, to the author’s rhetorical purpose. She doesn’t want to ask the reader the question “What happened?” or take the stance of not knowing what happened, not even of having not known what happened for a single moment as she saw the map turn red. She wants to tell the reader “[This is] what happened,” and to take the stance that she knows what happened, and that she instantly knew what happened; she wants to present herself as the person who knows more and will tell everybody else how it is. And of course that stance and that rhetorical purpose may have something to do with why she lost; but on the other hand, rhetoric is partly ethos, the expression of character, and I don’t think you can say that the author isn’t expressing her character! It wouldn’t occur to her that anyone might wonder why, if she knew what happened, she didn’t know it early enough to take it into account in her campaign strategy. . . .

    1. So she’s just explaining to the ignorant masses how we failed her, not asking how she failed? Makes sense.

        2. “Nous somme trahis!” “We have been betrayed!” The cry of the French troops as their ranks collapsed at Waterloo…

    1. You left one out — according to her, Obama all but begged her to run for office. So she’d been anointed by the left’s “chosen one”. She should have won. She was robbed and she’ll be glad to tell you all about it.

      1. I did note that her husband and Obama gave her the minimum amount of support a Party candidate could expect.

            1. Which show’s she was truly being foolish. However much I disagree with his policies and conduct, Mr. Clinton was an effective politician who made people like him, which is something Mrs. Clinton has not been able to manage.

      2. Heh. Now I’m imagining her pestering Obama, possibly in some situation where he can’t just outright deny her, perhaps a party or similar, until he says something like “I guess” which she can interpret as an affirmative so she can sort of realistically claim that he asked her to run.

      3. The fix was in from the start. In order to get her to drop the fight in 2008 (and avoid a contested convention) the Dems promised her the nomination in 2016. While not known for keeping their promises, this is one they HAD to keep or they’d never be able to make a deal like it again. The more I hear about 2016 from Dems the more I think I’m right. (But that could just be confirmation bias.)

        1. I believe you are right. That “agreement” was an open secret after the 2008 convention. But don’t you know Bernie isn’t asking — and none too nicely — why he wasn’t given that same sort of agreement? Instead, they fixed it from the beginning that he wouldn’t get the nomination in favor of St. Shrillary.

  21. HRC’s book causes damage to brain. Reviewer goes on a rampage. (I don’t want to see these headlines) Are you sure that biting the bullet is worth it?

    1. More likely, “reviewer found huddled in the corner, eyes wide as she stared off into the distance begging for the evil woman not to come any closer”. (those delusions are hellishly frightening)

      1. I’m just hoping you don’t turn into the equivalent of a Lovecraft protagonist, who sees That Which Should Not Be Seen Or Read From and ends up babbling “Ia! Ia! Cthulhu ftaghn!” or something.

  22. “Then there’s the whole bit about not thinking she would be attacked for what she did or said.”

    So – that’s why she made such tremendous efforts at transparency, publishing transcripts of her highly remunerated speeches and providing audio & video where available?

    This from the women who was so consumed with concerns over a “vast right-wing conspiracy” bent on destroying her husband and her that she established and maintained a clandestine email server?

  23. “I would do a world of good and help an awful lot of people.”

    Our government was not established to “do a world of good and help an awful lot of people.”

    It was established to protect the rights of its citizens.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

    You would think that they covered that at Yale Law, at least would have covered that back when she was attending.

      1. Yale is a university where accidentally offending Leftists gets even Leftists into trouble, forcing resignation from positions of authority. It is a place where a senior professor was afraid to have a Trump sticker on his car. Would you expect them to ask for a degree back?

    2. Very true. If she wanted to do good and help people, she should have started a charity.

      I mean, you know, a real charity, not a money-laundering operation.

      1. It wasn’t just a money laundering operation. There was also influence peddling. Well, until they ran out of influence.

  25. Good thing Amanda is taking this in small, controlled doses.
    I’d hate to have her become addicted to Hillary.

    1. Nooooo! That is NOT going to happen. Shudder. The moment I start saying I’m voting the Democratic ticket, you guys have permission to have me tranked and held in a nice, safe libertarian home until I come back to my senses.

      1. Well, apparently Hillary is the latest opioid of the masses. And we’re having an opioid crisis. Let’s see, unlawful, easily obtained, poor quality control, easily overdosed, not designed for human consumption drugs that allow people to zone out of their awful realities. What could possibly go wrong?

    2. It would be less an addiction than an instance of Stockholm Syndrome.
      “feelings of trust or affection felt in certain cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim toward a captor.”
      Be strong, Amanda.

  26. Does Shrillary pronounce the title of this pile of bull as a question? Because it could be a statement; (This is) What Happened.

    Not that the book contains that either.

    1. I can imagine her followers shambling around chanting “Hillary! Hil-la-ry!” like the ones chanting “Imotep!” from that film.

    1. Al Gore? You call that gentle fading? Most other candidates are capable of learning from the voters’ rejection, but losing the electoral vote while winning the pop vote appears to cause irreversible brain damage (an argument against letting such losers ever run again.)

      1. Six months of so and The Gorp was gone with the whine. It has been a year and the Witch and her coven are still shrieking like monkeys.

          1. I almost wished there was a recount in NV. We had too many folks who were bussed in from California to vote. We called them tourist voters– they came in for a day, voted, and then went gambling. *sigh Plus those of use who saw it happened were told we were delusional.

      2. It is hard to remember Al Gore since he became the jetting “the world is dying.” type. Easy to ignore someone so hypocritical. And yes, you’re right. I blame my fading memory on meds… yea, meds.

  29. All I can hope for is that 100 years from now, nobody can remember the Clintons, Bill OR Hillary.

              1. You have to find this thread via the WP reader and there’s a like button there. Also, What’s on second.

                1. I eschew WP Reader over aesthetic disagreements. Further, I don’t want a “Like” button where WP wants to put it, I want where I want it put. I am able to compromise but WP Reader isn’t compromise, it’s bending over backwards.

                  Who’s on Second?

  30. This certainly displays all the humility and self-reflection I’d expect from someone who compares themselves to Cersei Lannister.

    1. Really? She does?

      I wonder if she has also slept with her brother. Besides being a narcissist and somebody who cares only about power, not her subjects or much of people in general.

      I haven’t watched the series or read the books, but I have read a few articles about the series while trying to decide if I care to watch it at some point, and that is pretty much the idea given of that character. Now why would any public figure running for some office claim that she is like that character? Even as a joke? It doesn’t exactly give a good idea of her. If she claimed that people seem to see her as that character, maybe, but saying that she is like that character…?

      1. Because she is unaware. She probably read some leftist tripe about how Cersei is a powerful woman and that’s why she’s hated, and never knew anything but that about her.
        Or, it was a very large Freudian slip. A circus tent-sized slip….

        2. Well, if you’re sufficiently brazen about not pretending to have any morals, at least least you aren’t a hypocrite. That seems to cover a lot of sins, such as lying, cowardice, greed, ignoring inconvenient facts and even laws. If the Chosen One can do no wrong because she defines morality…well.

      2. But but…

        Cersei Lannister is a Strong Woman!

        Are you afraid of Strong Women? [End Sarcasm]

        Seriously, I suspect that all Saint Hillary knows about the fictional Cersei Lannister is that Cersei is a Strong Woman and thus Cersei is to be admired. 😦

        2. Nice. I never put up something like that (or very rarely, slip ups do happen to everybody), or say it where it might get into the grapevine, without knowing at least something about what I am talking about – in cases like this I would at least have checked the wiki page of the character. And I am a nobody.

          Well, those slip ups do happen, but she seems to make quite a lot.

          2. You may be a nobody, but you’re an intelligent nobody.

            Hillary only believes she’s intelligent. 😉

            1. Correction: Hillary is certified intelligent. By her college*, by her law school, by everyone around her (or at least, those who know what’s good for them.)

              *Wellesley. Valedictorian 1969. Proof she was very good at jumping through hoops and collecting the fish afterward.

              1. My good wallaby, she was only described as intelligent by those around her who’ve survived. Those who were willing to describe her otherwise could not be reached for comment. (Except for Donna Brazile, who’s merely too busy to respond to the likes of wallabies, cats, minotaurs, dragons, and other bloggers.)

                2. I have been enjoying excerpts from Brazile’s book all day.
                  With no intentions of buying it, of course. She has a lot of gall presenting herself as The Wronged One after her shenanigans with the debate questions.
                  I suppose the Devil made her do it.

                  1. A friend of mine (very conservative and who hates Hillary) is reading Brazile’s book right now and enjoying it. I think partly because it is written better than HRC’s book and party because Brazile is doing to Clinton what Clinton has done to everyone else — throwing her under the bus. I find it entertaining and educational the way we are seeing more and more of the Dems coming out a year after the election and offering their take on what happened. Especially since they are also the ones Clinton threw under the bus (Brazile, Biden, et al)

                    1. If Hillary’s book doesn’t make your head go all Scanners, you might try Tip O’Neill’s “Man of the House.” It’s his political autobiography, chock full of smarmy anecdotes about subverting due process, fraud, and some acts that bordered on outright treason.

                      He figured he was above any censure, and wanted to rub it in deep.

                    2. Uh, no thanks. I’ll let someone else do that one. It’s bad enough I’m still considering doing Brazile’s book after this one. 😉

                    3. One observes that, as with many of these political memoirs aka my-side-of-the-story, all of the damaging events are disclosed well after they had an (always negative) effect. No one ever stands athwart the campaign yelling “Stop!”
                      And if Hillary had won, Brazile would have deep-sixed any notes she had about the process. That she published at all demonstrates how low the Clinton “credit” has fallen.
                      If this keeps up, we’re gonna need a bigger bus.

                    5. “it is written better than HRC’s book”, so is THE POKEY PUPPY

                      “Brazile is doing to Clinton what Clinton has done to everyone else — throwing her under the bus.”

                      That’s one big ka-whump!

                    6. Especially because I understand Brazile backs up, rolls over her again and again and again. She is doing her best to make sure she gets the job done.

                    7. Well, there’s O’Neill’s book, and the Trekonomics book I mentioned a while back. I’d do it, except I think they deserve a better job than I could do.

        4. She probably thought: “Middle-aged woman in politics, hated by people, just like me!” and ran with it.

      3. Queen Chillarsei Clinister. A.K.A. the single most important reason why Usteros is such of horrible mess. Bobby Bubbatheon should never have been put on the throne.

  34. Was that ‘Caught Trying’ or ‘Caught Lying’?

    And at this point, what difference does it make?

  35. OT: (Or is it, considering?)

    I have seen Old Granddad bourbon denigrated, but it does have a “high rye mashbill” as the label proclaims. I can taste the rye in the whiskey. It might not be a fantastic bourbon for the bourbon aficionado, for one who likes rye and isn’t expecting a full-on rye, it’s good stuff. [And that last bottle of Whistlepig rye was sold before I got there – not upset, now I have several things rather than just one… and “there’s always next year” as is said..]

        1. I do NOT blame you. I’ve not experience the 8 y-o JB, but I used to have some Beam around… and then I made a Mint Julep.. and, at least to me the current Jim Beam just isn’t up to that. Fwiw, I wouldn’t use Old Granddad in a Julep, either, but it makes for a quite reasonable Manhattan.

  36. Starting this afresh, with fresh schadenboner data:

    Donna Brazile wasn’t even allowed to swear in front of Clinton’s people
    By Maureen Callahan
    “Hacks,” Donna Brazile’s memoir of the 2016 election, opens with a seemingly minor conflict: Months after the election, Brazile keeps checking her cellphone, waiting for her old friend Hillary Clinton to call.

    “On Election Day, the tradition in politics is that candidates personally thank the people who helped most in the campaign,” Brazile writes. “Win or lose, in the days that follow, the candidate extends that circle of gratitude to members of the party and the donors. Bernie Sanders called me on November 9, 2016, and Joe Biden, too. The vice president even came to our staff holiday party. But I never heard from Hillary.”

    When the call finally does come, in February, it’s a letdown. Brazile had served as interim chair of the DNC since July — “my second stint in this thankless job,” she writes — and Hillary, she says, offered up mere small talk and platitudes. Brazile felt like she was just another call to make, a transaction to complete. So much as a “thank you” is not documented here.

    [SNIP]

    This anecdote is the Clinton campaign in miniature: entitled, thoughtless, insular, reactive, remote, insincere. Small moments in Brazile’s book illuminate larger, holistic defects. In Hillary’s memoir, she blames her loss on racism, sexism, James Comey, Bernie Sanders, the Russians, Mitch McConnell, the media, the “deplorables.”

    Brazile blames Hillary.

    It’s hard to recall a campaign memoir so acidic and vengeful. Parts of it read like a teenager’s diary, one who has realized her 8th-grade best friend is actually a mean girl once she ices you out, too. It can make for bitchy fun.

    [SNIP]

    Brazile calls Clinton’s impenetrable campaign structure “Brooklyn,” after its headquarters. “No one was to breathe or to move unless Brooklyn told them it was okay,” she writes. Clinton’s chief political strategist Minyon Moore told Brazile that she wasn’t to curse around the “smart young people in Brooklyn,” easily offended millennials. Brazile was shocked that the campaign wasn’t filled with hard-drinking nights and hookups, the markers of a larger passion. It was Brazile’s first indicator that Clinton’s campaign was too secure in a win. She thought they needed help.

    [SNIP]

    Brazile’s next absurd crisis: Donald Duck.

    The Clinton campaign was paying at least one person to dress as Donald Duck and follow Donald Trump everywhere. The pun? Trump was “ducking” release of his tax returns. The Walt Disney Company wanted this shut down. ABC, owned by Disney, wanted it shut down.

    Once again, the only Clinton staffer responding to Brazile was young Brandon, who insisted the duck was no problem.

    After all, he said, they hadn’t heard anything from Disney.

    Brazile reminded him that their very conversation was happening because she had heard from Disney.

    “Kill the f–king duck, goddammit!”

    [SNIP]

    By noon that day, the duck was dead. But this unforced error, this massive struggle over something so stupid, was proof that Hillary learned no lessons from her first failed presidential run. Here was the same cocooning, the same defiance, the same poor hires and worse hierarchy. Every decision was a bad one.

    [SNIP]

    Hillary, Brazile implies, is the cancer: evasive, untruthful, out of touch, arrogant and greedy. The lies her campaign told after Hillary collapsed at Ground Zero two months before the election led Brazile to consider a replacement ticket — a shocking admission from a decades-long Clinton loyalist. Her book is an epic reckoning with a toxic candidate who, for all her liberal bona fides, treated staffers and the electorate as courtiers.

    Perhaps Hillary should have made that traditional call to Brazile sooner. “I accepted after we said our goodbyes,” Brazile writes, “that I might never hear from her again.”

    Apparently so. The book ends with nine pages of effusive thanks and acknowledgments, the one person responsible for this bestseller omitted: Hillary Clinton.

  37. Gosh, her arrogance is absolutely incredible. How can one person be so aggressively wrong about everything? I’m not a big Trump fan, but I become more and more thankful that this woman isn’t our president every day.

  38. Pingback: HRC: A New Deal, A Square Deal or How She Wanted to be the Next Roosevelt –Amanda S. Green | According To Hoyt

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