My Review of Hillary Clinton's Book Part I

Lol! This is one of the funniest things you have written Good wit and humor. Keep it up!

A good take. I'm not particularly invested in her post-mortem except in a kind of morbid fascination way. I don't think Clinton's qualifications (or Sanders') were ever in doubt, even from her critics.

What I think her run against Sanders illustrated was the deep problems the Democratic party has had since they took a right turn in the 1990s, and the whole problem with certain types of liberalism generally.

Sanders illustrated that too -- he has a "class first" approach, which is good as far as it goes, but fails to address the very real economics of racism. Clinton was sort of like a mirror image (though she too simply punted on substantial issues of race; doing the occasional Spanish phrase isn't the same as calling out racism by name).

And I've said it before: there was no affirmative reason to vote for Clinton (that she offered) to many people; the data is pretty clear that Democratic voters stayed home while a well-distributed cohort of bigots was motivated to vote.

(When you say to someone "Oh your job is gone but we will retrain you" everyone knows that is horseshit -- and that's true for PoC as well).

Anyhow, what interests me more is whether progressive people will be able to seize the moment. My biggest issue with Obama was that equipped with a supermajority, he asked two Dem senators to be in his cabinet right when an important set of votes was coming, and took single-payer off the table from the getgo. He also wasn't seriously challenging the national security state. Clinton wasn't doing that either, and both were more interested in saving the insurance industry's prerogatives rather than saving the industry from itself.

I would hope that if the Dems make big gains in the midterms, they use them. I can't imagine why they think appealing to people who voted for Trump precisely because he said "I am going to hurt brown people (and get cozy with those who want to kill Jews") is a winning strategy, given who won the popular vote.

(I mean, it isn't 1960. You don't need the support of Southern Democrats anymore, they all joined the GOP. They're gone from an electoral strategy POV).

I do suspect that in the end, the primary explanation of "what happened" will be defined by who stayed home. The why they stayed home certainly includes exactly the things you say, plus some Russian influences that are more recent and unique.

I also think that there has been an effective wake up call to not run to the center every time someone says "boo."

Dear Greg Laden, you write, (quote:) 'Disagree with the contents of this book you haven’t read, if you can manage to eventually read it and be fair and not a cherry picker with your opinion. But do not, I repeat, do not, tell her to shut up. That’s what Republicans do, that’s what dictators do. That’s what the original American Patriots did, who burned literature they didn’t like and physically assaulted the authors, and burned their homes, back before we got civilization.'

This is interesting. I agree with you as far as your remark concerns: ' 'Disagree with the contents of this book you haven’t read, if you can manage to eventually read it and be fair and not a cherry picker with your opinion. But do not, I repeat, do not, tell her to shut up.'

I disagree however with the limitation in your remark: 'That’s what Republicans do, that’s what dictators do. That’s what the original American Patriots did, who burned literature they didn’t like and physically assaulted the authors, and burned their homes, back before we got civilization.'

There is a saying about 'a splinter in the eye of another and a beam in your own eye'.

As you wish to stand on honest grounds, you will agree with me that your blog has shown and shows several examples of Democrats who just do what you detest in the supposed behaviour you put in the shoes of Republicans and Patriots.

Your blog gives shelter to those 'democratic' persons under the flag of anonymity under which cover they can spit the most foul and filthy language and condemnations of and about study's and books they haven´t even read, even about books that are to be published.

If you want a real scientific debate and proper discussion about the book of Hillary Clinton and the books of others I advice you to stop giving shelter to anonymous cursing by people who prefer their own biases and personal preferences above a fair and philosophical exchange of facts, possible causes and possible consequences.

The guerrilla tactics and positions shown not only on your blog but also on other ´meeting or better clash points´ of opinion are regrettable but true a deplorable characteristic of today's 'civilised' America and undermine decency and trust, and nullify the necessary ingredients for good society.

Your warning wouldn't be necessary if all participants on this blog would display decency towards opinions which differ from their own.

I'm curious whether your appeal will hold on the field of fairness and decency. I wish you the best of luck with your comments on Hillary.

Jesse ~ You said there was no affirmative reason to vote for Clinton. And now she writes a book called What Happened?

Ha ha ha! Russian influence? Why people did not vote!?

DNC shenanigans, email revelations, putting sensitive documents on HRC's home server when she knew better (you pointed out her experience in government-she knew better!), and screwing Bernie did her in. People turned out to vote against her. Millions of fake ballots and calling Trump supporters "deplorable" also did her in.

Face it! Hillary and the Dems blew it!

People are tired of more of the same in government. They are tired of career politicians selling out the USA.

Wait, wait! Here it comes! Time for the liberal, alt-left trolls to come out and attack my character! As comrade Stalin called them-- "useful idiots" -- aka socialist progressives bent on globalist government.

Here it comes again, read the fear of #6.

Hope no one gives ground to the apparently existing fear of anonymous ´nom plume de guerre´ Ripsawff #6, (quote:)

'Wait, wait! Here it comes! Time for the liberal, alt-left trolls to come out and attack my character! As comrade Stalin called them– “useful idiots” — aka socialist progressives bent on globalist government.'

We need better Russian trolls. Come on, where is the varsity troll team.

"As you wish to stand on honest grounds, you will agree with me that your blog has shown and shows several examples of Democrats who just do what you detest in the supposed behaviour you put in the shoes of Republicans and Patriots."

Absolutely, and in these remarks my intent is to shame them!

I do wish people would rethink some of the score settling. Whether it's Bernie fans blunting criticism of Trump by saying 'what about Hillary" or Hillary supporters doing their damnedest to drive the left away, ...either way, it's music to the ears of the GOP.

I would much prefer it if Republicans didn't hear such music.Not meaning to suggest anyone should shut up, but I do think quite a few people could be more constructive.

Great. Sounds like good music to my Dutch ears... Only together we can build defensive systems against cruelty and atrocity's whether they stem from nature or from people. We have to respect each other and cooperate to stand up for our life.

@WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot - I don't know if you're just being facetious, but either way, yes, the problem was that "I'm not that guy" is usually not a winning strategy even against a weak-ish candidate.

As to her book, we'll see what it says. I'd be interested to know why she decided against campaigning in Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, for example, and why she thought a white woman was going to get the PoC turnout that Obama did.

(And as for Sanders, well, his outreach to voters of color was pretty poor, though it got better as the campaign went on. Even so, he missed a lot of opportunities himself).

Greg,

it's disappointing to see this sort of abdication of the responsibility that comes with your significant clout in the "Science Wars":

Finally, my review of the book:

I don’t have one. The book is not published yet. I don’t intend to say anything about the book until I’ve read it (I pre-ordered it).

By that logic, Peter Gleick would never have published his one-star prefutation of Delinquent Teenager on Amazon, and humanity would have no way of guessing—to this day—what a "stunning compilation of lies, misrepresentations, and falsehoods about the fundamental science of climate change" LaFramboise was foisting on the world.

By that logic, Dana Nuccitelli would never have published his point-by-point prebuttal of The Hockey Stick Illusion in time to stop customers buying a "crazy tale of data manipulation and vast conspiracies which have very little semblance to what actually happened with regards to the infamous ‘hockey stick’."

Heck, I'll go further.

By that logic, IPCC authors would have to wait until after the Assessment Reports were written in order to "Summarize" their contents for "Policy Makers"! Needless to say, this would make a mockery of the very raison d'etre of the Panel, which is to provide a unique chance for Policy to tell Science what to tell Policy to do (in a strictly policy-non-prescriptive way).

It's the easiest thing in the world to come up with insightful commentary on a text by reading it first. Any fool can cheat.

But you're a scientist, Greg—and We, the People, expect a bit better from scientists.

Let me close with some words from Dr Nuccitelli, a scholar whose expertise, influence and credibility—while considerable—don't begin to approach your own. I humbly urge you, Greg, to ask your conscience: if such a junior scientist isn't afraid to take the below stance, what excuse do I really have for twiddling my thumbs on the sidelines of Delay, Reticence and Agnosticism?

July 24, 2010 8:10 AM PDT
Dana A. Nuccitelli says:

I never said I read the book, I merely criticized the factually inaccurate claims it makes. I suggest you get over yourself.

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3 of 6 Amazon customers think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?

"Then, a lot of people felt compelled to tell this woman to shut her pie hole based on this book."

It's probably a good idea to get a draft of what happened down in writing while it's still fresh in mind. So good on her. As an aside though, it may not be fair to judge the book yet, but it's fair enough to comment, applaud, roll eyes, whatever at the interviews she's been giving on her book tour.

Personally, I voted for her, but I've got some major issues with her (and the Dems) over what essentially boils down to messaging and what that indicates about her and the state of the party. That includes what I've heard about the book so far. So at this point, unless it contains a way to dismantle the alt-fascist structures and Republican bad habits that are being entrenched in government, my attention will be directed elsewhere.

(But I will read whatever you have to say about it when the time comes.)

# 13 Brad Keyes. What do you try to say?

You decided to support who you thought would win the nomination? What is the logic behind that bandwagon jumping? I think it should generally be vote as if your choice will decide the winner, though others go with sending a message.

You are right about Bernie voters being in denial about his chances. After Super Tuesday it was pretty much over because of the Democratic primary proportional allocations. Hillary won big in a bunch of medium sized states that Bernie could not make up. Point this out, and they say, we'll see what it looks like after California.

Brad Keys, read the original post. I'm not going to comment on a book I've not read.

I'm not sure if Dana should have done that either. It would have been fairly easy for him to have taken a different approach.

Also, you are assuming the book is terrible. I'm not making assumptions.

MikeN: the logic is simple. I liked both candidates, so I could have supported either one. Once one was the inevitable winner it makes sense to get moving on that campaign sooner than later.

Had I had a preference, in the primary, I would have supported my preferred candidate (then voted strategically in the general).

I'm not sure what you mean by proportional allocations affecting the outcome. The way committed delegates are determined in the Democratic Party process is that the votes are divided proportionately based on popular vote. So the delegate count is essentially a direct sampling of the popular vote. Is that what you mean?

But yes, it was always "we'll see how California goes" ignoring a) California was going to go for Clinton and b: New York!

Greg, after Super Tuesday or shortly thereafter Hillary had gotten big wins at 60-80% giving her a large delegate lead that Bernie could not make up, because of the proportional allocations. Indeed Hillary's campaign manager targeted these rules when deciding how to spend money. Districts that had even numbers of delegates were ignored since the result would be the same.

MikeN, you realize that proportionate delegate representation is democracy, right? It is how it is supposed to be done. You are saying this like it is a bad thing.

Thanks for recommending "American Revolutions". I got it from the library this morning and, based on reading only the first 50 pages so far, I think it's very, very good.

Greg, I didn't call the proportional allocation unfair. Just observed it's why Bernie could not catch up. If other candidates had stayed in and Hillary had won all these early states with 25% of the vote, the proportional allocation would have made it easy for Bernie to catch up, while a winner take all would have made the race over. This was how McCain waltzed to the nomination.

If I may, I think the issue is that at a certain point, there was no mathematical possibility for Bernie to win unless 100 percent of the Democrats in the remaining states voted for him.

I saw the writing on the wall when he couldn't take Massachusetts, despite Boston being fairly favorable ground, and was unable to get a majority in Brooklyn. Sanders is a New Yorker in a way that Clinton was not and he should have been able to snag a break-even in New York, given that he dominated the upstate counties. That didn't occur, and at that point I knew it was unlikely he'd pull off a win unless he did unrealistically well in California. While a place like Oakland or San Francisco might seem to play to his strengths, as it happened that wasn't the case (and I could simply not see many SoCal Democrats breaking his way).

As a New Yorker, I knew something about Sanders that a lot of other people across the country didn't know. I would have voted for Clinton on that basis alone.

This is where my opinion of Hillary Clinton differs from Greg's. I think that she was an abominable Secretary of State - indeed one of the worst in US history. She oversaw the destruction of Libya, turning it into a failed state, and her maniacal cackling upon learning that Gaddafi had been lynched, accompanied by the words, "We came, we saw, he died" are chilling. She said nothing when the democratically elected leader of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown in a military coup that was condemned throughout Latin America. Her bellicose views if foreign policy were virtually identical to those of neocons like Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, all of whom supported her candidacy in the last election. Paul Street wrote an outstanding piece today on Counterpunch in which he argues that Clinton was to the right of Goldwater. And her slavish subservience to Wall Street and the banks is clear, or should have been. The Democrats lost because Clinton was a lousy candidate. The sooner that progressives realise this, the sooner that they can try to return their party to its egalitarian roots. This obsession with blaming the Russians for Trump hinders their ability to face the truth. Trump is repugnant for sure, but the Democrats urgently need to look in the mirror if they are to form a viable opposition.

Jeff, I remember Hillary condemning the Honduran coup, and eventually preventing the death penalty and getting the leader out of the country.

As for the rest, I think people will see Hillary was a lousy candidate after reading this book. Latest excerpt was a woman drags her adult daughter to Hillary to apologize for not voting. Hillary writes "I wanted to tell her 'How could you not vote?' People are coming to me for absolution, but they are responsible for the consequences of their decisions."

Jeff, are any of the donors doing a careful accounting of all the money? Obama campaign exaggerates in saying they know every one of the 70 million people who voted for him. They had lots of offices and did in person contact with every voter in swing states. Hillary had offices but did not spend the money to do all that, despite having a data guy Mook and over a billion dollars to spend. Are people satisfied that the money did not end up being kept by Hillary and her buddies?

All due respect, Jeff's rant is not especially accurate or inspired. Just more Hillary Hate as far as I can tell, but of that special kind we tend to find coming from certain parts of Europe.

I haven't read this book either, and I may not read it (so many books, so little time.)

But I have read a number of columns about it, and I want to say just one thing:

Those columns invariably tell their readers how Hillary Clinton blames herself repeatedly for losing the election. She blames other factors as well, but the essential point is that she does blame herself.

And every one of these columns draws a spate of commenters who say, in effect, "I'm sick and tired of hearing from Hillary Clinton, because she blames everybody but herself for losing the election."

Yes, I'm sick and tired of hearing from people who can't even read, but don't let it stop them from spouting damn nonsense.

Move over, David Brinkley.

Hillary's tells readers the lesson of 1984 is you have to trust leaders, press, experts(and ourselves).
When Disney made Rogue One, they reshot the movie because they didn't think it was sufficiently Star Wars.
Can Hillary fire her ghostwriter and redo the book?

It's not a hate rant, Greg. The fact that Clinton was endorsed by a coterie of neocons is, or should be, enough evidence to suggest that she was no Democrat. She sucked up to Goldman Sachs for lucrative speaking fees, refusing to apologize, and pursued a brazenly aggressive foreign policy agenda. Why else would people like Kagan swoon over her? I am sure that, like Obama, she received hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and corporations for her election campaign. She also made chilling remarks intimating that the Pacific Ocean was in essence "America's pond". And once again, her hideous laugh upon learning that Gaddafi had been lynched was vile.

The reason that an ignoramus like Trump was elected is because the establishment Democrats, controlled by big money, wanted Clinton as President. They thought her election was a slam-dunk, and that she just had to show up at a few debates to win. She hardly campaigned in the US Midwest, because she was so convinced that she had those states in the bag.

Essentially, the Democrats were initially worried that Clinton would be running against someone like Jeb Bush. The worry stemmed from the fact that the policies of Clinton and Bush were virtually identical. The DNC helped push to get Trump nominated because he is such a bombastic, misogynistic, sexist creep that they thought he didn't stand a chance. How wrong they were. Now the US is stuck with this abominable POTUS and the blame lies squarely with the DNC and Clinton.

>DNC helped push to get Trump nominated

They asked the media to promote Trump and Cruz, who would be pied piper candidates that would push Bush and Rubio and Walker the hard right. Bill mapped out the strategy for defeating Trump in late February. They followed this plan, but strangely ignored his list of states where Trump was likely to be strong.

Paul Street, in Counterpunch, writes a great expose revealing how the Democratic Establishment, with Clinton in tow, set out to smear Sanders at every turn. Some of the things that she, Biden, Obama and other conservative Democrats did to derail Sanders are beneath contempt. Yet, this stupid obsession with Russia remains at the core of their feeble attempts to explain their humiliating defeat. They don't want to face the ugly truth - that Clinton, whose poll ratings remain even below Trump's, was a loathed candidate and that the Democrats ran an appallingly bad campaign that put Trump into power by default. I loathe Trump but I blame the Democrats completely for becoming a supine party in thrall to the banks and corporations.

Read the article. It's a bombshell.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/08/hillary-hates-again/

Either of the donkey party nominees could have thrashed any of the 16 elephants if science was put front and center of agenda and platform.
The donkeys chose not to. Fuck them . Usless idiots just like the elephants.

#28. Well, she does blame herself, but that does not seem to be the essential issue in interviews I've seen, which admittedly focus questions on other points. She does seem to double down on her analysis of strategy, though.

#s other. The notion that Clinton and the Dems have OCD and weird delusions about the Russians is just right wing troll vomit. On the other hand, I believe progressives have had issues with the Clintons that go way back before Russian troll farms and the like. And yes, that happens to be the kind of thing that the Russians would eventually try to take advantage of. But no, not everybody who has an issue with Clinton is a useful idiot for the Russians. (The rhetoric just gets muddier and muddier...)

Anyway, is her book now out, or just snippets? Here's what seems to be a review that focuses on the Bernie issue:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/12/hillary-clintons-new-book…

Again, I voted for Clinton, but as I said, I have major issues around her messaging and what that says about the state of the Dems...

Jeff Harvey, if you were supporting Sanders you were conned. He had no intention of winning, and was just running to be a voice and push the party to stand for principles. Wikileaks even reveals there was an 'arrangement' for Sanders not to attack Hillary too much.
If Sanders were interested in winning, I think he could have done it if he was willing to act like Trump and threaten to run third party if he lost. What would liberals do at that point? Greg Laden said he supported Hillary, but would he risk certain Trump victory for minor differences?
Perhaps even that was not needed. What if his supporters engaged in primary season to beat Hillary superdelegates. If they knocked off one or two early, it would send a message and others would flip.

The New Republic‘s Leon Wieseltier:

“There is a certain sensibility, for which Mrs. Clinton’s generation is famous, and which she perfectly exemplifies, that hates being preceded. Everything it experiences it experiences for the first time. When it sees, there is light; and when it fails to see, the whole world is covered in darkness.”

Hillary whines that Trump was stalking her at the debate. This is a lie by Hillary. If you look carefully, what looks like stalking is actually Trump standing at his podium.

#37

MN's trolling hallucinations lie. And just so you know, Trump forgot to bring his own podium. So when he wasn't doing his creepy gangster clown routine, he was actually zooming around on Spicer's mobile attack podium.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fSaL93cdaO4

"If you look carefully, what looks like stalking is actually Trump standing at his podium."

No podium in the photo ...

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2016/10/14/14-trump-stalking-…

dhogaza,

Yeah, I watched the debates. The stalking was plain as day for all to see. Either MikeN is gas lighting (which would be in character for him) or perhaps even more likely he is, as I believe, feeling lonely and bleating for attention at 39.

So sad, it brings a tear to me eye. Hopefully this little bit of conversation will cheer up the poor lad.

Dhogaza, what is that right next to him?

I couldn't believe it when I saw it on replay, was actually looking for something else. I assumed at the time that Trump was trying to get into her camera angle to produce a visual contrast for the home audience of how much bigger he is than Hillary, especially after in previous debates they were producing a split screen that had them at the same size. I was surprised to see that Trump was reading Hillary's notes. Only when I played it again did I realize he was coming back to his podium(or whatever I should call it).

Sorry. I meant MikeN at 37, not 39.

Mike, do you know what a podium is?
Do you know what it means to stand at a podium?
Do you understand motion and spatial relationships?
Do you know what stalking is?
do you understand social boundaries?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but seriously, is this your attempt at humor, or do you need to see a neurologist about this?

https://youtu.be/FRlI2SQ0Ueg?t=50

Compare with dhogaza's picture above.

For now I'm only able to view m.youtube ready content. So I went there and reviewed a number of clips. Long story short you gotta love Cenk Uygur. Here is a pretty good presentation and discussion from The Young Turks. Watch the whole 7:33...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr4OMx7jm6Y

To which I'd add a note about the douchebag way Trump shakes hands (when he can) by grabbing a person's hand and yanking them forward off balance. You know, I had to laugh at his word salad burbling when describing his now infamous handshake with Macon in France.

Anyway, factor in Trump's contempt for, well just about everybody, but especially for women (with an extra dose of creepy) and maybe it will start to sink in what was going on there-- though I'm not optimistic on that score.

#39 jeeeezzz! Wow.
Where have i seen that shit before???
Thats Burrs Lars Thorwald character.
Can anyone else see it?

Ok. Its not quite the same as Lars, now i have refreshed my memory. But its sorta close.
Rear Window is a great flick.
Tbe image i was thinking of can be seen here. ( with a bit of movement too! )

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/4-old-hollywood-films-not-bore-you

bit late to this but I am curious, Greg, what you know about Sanders that other New Yorkers or people outside don't? It's not like the guy was exactly a hermit, and there's plenty of stuff going back to the 80s you could dig into. In progressive circles (at least in the northeast) he was a pretty known quantity.

You could get into a whole other debate as to what that meant in terms of his seeking the nomination. But as I understood it there wasn't any blockbuster revelation coming out about Sanders - at least not that I hadn't seen in god-knows-how-many leaflets ads and such from back when he was running for Senate. (I recall back then the word was how awful he was for saying the Sandanistas had a point about mining their harbors and the US sponsoring a rebel army).

In fact one of the things about his legislative record was that it was, well, kind'a boring to people who aren't into this stuff. He proposed a load of amendments to bills (some good) but that kind of stuff never gets headlines.

The only new thing that's come out is the college in Vermont his wife ran into the ground. Looks like Hillary is getting payback by siccing the FBI on her.

"The stalking was plain as day for all to see."

Yup, just as clear as the pictures that put the "huge" inauguration crowd lie front and center.

dean,

I wish I could say your inability to spell a four-letter word (HINT: it's yuge, dude) was surprising.