Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

What happened to Hillary Clinton? She lost

Eleven months on from foisting her second grabby megalomaniac on the United States, Hillary Clinton has resurfaced. Not to apologise for losing the presidency to an angry hairpiece who mimicked the disabled for laughs at campaign rallies — no, Clinton has a book to spruik. What Happened is published by Simon & Schuster and will be on the shelves from Tuesday.

Clinton appeared on CBS Sunday Morning to promote what, if the trails are to be believed, will be a standard Clinton exercise in self-justification and blame-shifting. It takes a village to take the fall. She will blast primary opponent Bernie Sanders for enabling Donald Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ meme and get snippy with Joe Biden over her campaign’s middle-class bona fides. In today’s Democrat Party, attacking Joe Biden is like punching the family dog and no doubt Rover will eventually be fingered as a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

In her CBS interview, she took a swipe at former FBI director James Comey for his investigation into her use of a private email server to receive classified communications during her time as Secretary of State. (‘I don’t know quite what audience he was playing to other than some right-wing commentators or right-wing members of Congress.’) She also blamed sexism, saying she had to ‘work extra hard to make women and men feel comfortable with the idea of a woman president. It doesn’t fit into the stereotypes we all carry around in our head. And a lot of the sexism and the misogyny was in service of these attitudes.’

Even where she ventures into self-reproach, such as on the email scandal, it is a very Clintonian admission, triangulating between apology and exculpation. ‘I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, that was my responsibility,’ she told CBS, before adding: ‘It was presented in such a negative way, and I never could get out from under it.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in