Hillary—Unplugged

Hillary Clinton's suffered an upset loss to a controversial GOP candidate who the polls and common sense said she should have beaten with little real effort. All she really needed was a clear focus on real problems facing our country and a way to distance herself subtly from the failed policies of the Obama presidency. Instead, she captained a campaign that essentially said—"I'm not Donald Trump, and I am a Woman.

The media was clearly and unequivocally in her camp. For crying out loud, even a significant percentage of the GOP elite was #NeverTrump. But she lost and lost badly, giving up states that have historically been the so-called "Blue Wall" that leads Democrats to victory. There are many reasons why she lost, but topping the long list were dishonesty and the taint of corruption, coupled with her clear connection to the elites that have screwed things up pretty badly in recent years. All of her wounds—a wooden campaign style, serial dishonesty, a tendency to cover-up even relatively minor things, negative comments made by other Democrats in email leaks from the DNC, her private email server, castigation by then-FBI director James Comey, the antipathy of Bernie Sander voters were of her own making.

It's understandable that Hillary Clinton took her defeat hard. After all, upsets losses are difficult. But her position today isn't one of a gracious politician who suffered a devastating loss, but rather one of an unhinged loser who refuses to admit that her loss was of her own making.

In an excellent summary of a recent interview Clinton gave at a California Tech conference, W. James Antle III provides a look into Clinton unhinged theory that a vast conspiracy in league with the Russians, Donald Trump, and nefarious billionaires, and even generally friendly left-wing media like the NYT and WaPo, unfairly plotted and succeeded in defeating her. And the Democrats tell us the the DNC leak story involving Seth Rich is a "crazy conspiracy" theory! My goodness.

The details of the latest iteration of her conspiracy theory are laughably delusional, sounding more like a bad political novel than the realities of the 2016 presidential campaign.* Like all good conspiracy stories, I suspect there are elements of truth in it. For example, the evil Russkies did want to roil the election and taint the next President—Hillary Clinton—who they were all but certain would win, but to suggest that they worked hand in hand with the Trump campaign (without one shred of evidence to support that contention), is damaging to public trust (not that Hillary gives a damn). Kelly Ann Conway and Steve Bannon did help Trump immensely and did make people like John Podesta look pretty bad in the end. The media did report on the email scandal, but to suggest that it was anti-Hillary is as unhinged as it is incorrect. There were undoubtedly big money donors who provided resources to help defeat her—as if there weren't big money donors on the Democrat side who did the same thing to defeat Donald Trump. It worth mentioning that HRC raised and spend close to 1.2 billion dollars (about twice what the Trump campaign spent) and still lost.

With every interview and speech, Hillary sinks deeper and deeper into delusion and at the same time fuels her rage (and the rage of the Democratic base) against the man who beat her. Clinton's words and actions of late are simple confirmation that the American people did NOT make a mistake when they decided she was unfit to be President of the United States.

FOOTNOTE:
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* For an honest and excruciatingly detailed look inside the the 2016 Clinton Campaign, written by generally sympathetic reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, read Shattered.

UPDATE-1:
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The conservative Blog, The Daily Wire, has compiled a list of the 35 (!) reasons that Hillary cites when she discusses her election loss. Enjoy.

You'd think that Hillary would follow the advice of a growing list of Democrats and move on. After all, her supporters told those of us who raised questions about The Clinton Foundation (a.k.a. Clinton Global Initiative) that it did amazing good works of charity around the globe. Gosh, you'd think that Hillary (and Bill) would dedicate the remainder of their lives to working on those amazing works through their "charity."

Oh ... wait. With weeks of her election loss, donations to CGI dried up, its staff was laid off, and it effectively shut down. Why was that, I wonder ... after all, all of those "good works" we still relevant, weren't they. Unless, of course, the donations were intended for another purpose. Heh.

UPDATE-2
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And this analysis from Peggy Noonan comments on Clinton's cornucopia of excuses and deflection:

Oddly, she seemed completely sincere, as if she believes her own story. It tells you something about our own power to hypnotize ourselves, to invent reasons that avoid the real reasons. It is a tribute to the power of human denial. And at first you think: I hope it was cathartic. Maybe these are just stories she tells herself to feel better.

But none of this, in truth, is without point. It is purposeful. It is not mere narrative-spinning. It is insisting on alternative facts so that journalists and historians will have to take them into account. It is a monotonous repetition of a certain version of events, which will be amplified, picked up and repeated into the future.

And it’s not true.

The truth is Bernie Sanders destroyed Mrs. Clinton’s chance of winning by almost knocking her off, and in the process revealing her party’s base had changed. Her plodding, charmless, insincere style of campaigning defeated her. Bad decisions in her campaign approach to the battleground states did it; a long history of personal scandals did it; fat Wall Street speeches did it; the Clinton Foundation’s bloat and chicanery did it—and most of all the sense that she ultimately stands for nothing but Hillary did it.

Yeah ... that's pretty much on target.