What Happened? Hillary Clinton tried to write a book and wrote a novel

My review of "What Happened":

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My 2 cents, or 2 stars worth

I didn't rate it 1 star for two reasons.

First, in a few rare instances, like discussing sriracha sauces, Hillary Clinton does allow peeks at what is presumably her real self.

Second, it deserves a second star because it reflects what Hillary Clinton believes about the 2016 campaign, and its backstory.

That said, much of what she believes, especially related to "Putin Did It," is simply wrong. (Note, I am writing from a leftist, not a GOP let alone Trumpist, angle. That said, many of the "Putin Did It" claims have been either PROVEN wrong or else withdrawn or modified. So, let's dig in!)

Here's a list of the major problems, by page number.

20. Did Hannah the Wisconsin election worker later / elsewhere get mad about Clinton not visiting the state?
35. Tries to triangulate between Obama as previous Dem president and Obama’s sluggish recovery.
47. Well-respected Clinton Foundation doesn’t mention Frank Giustra/Russia/uranium, nor does it mention Haiti and its less than totally reputable operation there
72. Calls emails — without mentioning a “server” — “one boneheaded mistake.” No deliberation, especially on server, not just account, mentioned.
74. Blames Bernie for not exiting the campaign sooner. Doesn’t mention parallel with her slow withdrawal in 2008.
112ff. Never mentions, in discussing her childhood, that she was a “Goldwater Girl.”
226. Falsely claims Bernie’s a socialist. She knows better.
229. Repeats stereotypes about BernieBros online harassing people. Never mentions online harassment of likes of Peter Daou.
229. Claims Bernie’s not a Dem. He is, de facto; Dem party has “cleared the field” for him since second House run. He is also, in a sense, de jure a Dem.
234. Obamacare is “universal” only on paper. For many, they can’t afford to buy anything other than the cheapest plan, and then they can’t afford to use it except in catastrophic cases.
239. Clinton claims that, deep inside, she favored a financial transactions tax and even basic income. Yeah, right. No post-election news stories about that.
254. Obama claimed that nobody in history was more qualified than her for White House. Reality? Setting aside Washington, there’s Adams, Jefferson, Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Buchanan, FDR, and Poppy Bush, on paper, at least.
289. Narrative about personal email >>account<< doesn’t mention server until 297, and then only in passing.
328. On matter of Putin’s being upset about NATO expansion, doesn’t mention that hubby Bill broke Poppy Bush’s oral pledge to Yeltsin that, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, NATO wouldn’t move east.
338. Wrong on Guccifer 2.0. Wrong on citing Crowdstrike as primary evidence.
341. Wrong on Russia hacking DNC emails vs a Dem insider stealing them.
352. Repeats the rejected “17 agencies” claim on Russia hacking DNC emails.
354. References the Steele dossier, now pretty much discredited, AND knows to have been paid for in part by the DNC, which Clinton also doesn’t mention
363. Many of the “21 states” she claims had state elections agencies that were Russian hacking targets now say that not only were they not compromised, as faras they know they weren’t targets.
411. Takes Jill Stein out of context, ignoring that the Obama-Clinton semi-coup in Ukraine that now has neo-Nazis in power is something that Stein rightfully complained about.

==

And, in a big picture on all of the “Putin Did It” claims, ignores that Crowdstrike either ignored or was unaware of poor security of NGP VAN, didn’t catch the DNC emails theft, as theft it was, and missed the Podesta phishing for months.

View all my reviews

Addendum to the review, for this blog post.

I feel kind of sad for her, and not in a patronizing way. I think she really believes most of what she (and one or more ghostwriters?) put in this book, even and especially the stuff about a Tobin tax and basic income. (Feel free to let me know if she's actually given speeches or anything about this.)

In reality, of course, this, along with her triangulating off Obama, shows that even by modern American political standards, there's no "there" there. Hillary Clinton is the Oakland of the Democratic Party, to riff on Gertrude Stein.

But, the modern Democratic Party seems to kind of like presidential candidates like that. Barack Obama didn't have much more "there" in 2008 than Clinton. And, post-presidency, banksters are paying him even more than they did her. But, many "resisters" who dislike, or even loathe, Hillary Clinton still fellate Barack Obama any chance they get. The reality is that they projected a lot of hopes and dreams on him. You didn't have to be a Green like me, or Green-leaner, to know that. All you had to do is note Obama's flip-flip on warrantless spying and giving a free pass to telecommunications companies in the summer of 2008.

The Slickster, of course, started the idea of triangulation, at least in modern form. He, of course, perfected the idea of "punching down" inside the modern Democratic Party.

Jimmy Carter was by no means perfect. He was the first neoliberal Democratic president, in many ways. (In some ways, JFK was.) But, in a number of cases, especially environmental issues, he was willing to take stances. Of course, his own party rick-rolled him in Congress for his pains.