People are taking different views of this -- from "Why doesn't she just go away?" -- to "At least let her write a book -- to "What a tragedy that we didn't elect her instead of you-know-who." I read what I think is the best, in depth, understanding of Clinton, the person, as well as her place in politics and government. It's based on an hour-long interview of Clinton by Ezra Klein, one of the smartest guys around news analysis and one of the founders of the Vox.com "explaining the news" site.
Ezra's introduction to the transcript is informative:
"What Happened has been sold as Clinton’s apologia for her 2016 campaign, and it is that. But it’s more remarkable for Clinton’s extended defense of a political style that has become unfashionable in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Clinton is not a radical or a revolutionary, a disruptor or a socialist, and she’s proud of that fact.
She’s a pragmatist who believes in working within the system, in promising roughly what you believe you can deliver, in saying how you’ll pay for your plans. She is frustrated by a polity that doesn’t share her “thrill” over incremental policies that help real people or her skepticism of sweeping plans that will never come to fruition. She believes in politics the way it is actually practiced . . . .
"This makes Clinton a more unusual figure than she gets credit for being: Not only does she refuse to paint an inspiring vision of a political process rid of corruption, partisanship, and rancor, but she’s also actively dismissive of those promises and the politicians who make them.
"On Tuesday morning, I sat down with Clinton for an hour. . . It is a cliché that stiff candidates become freer, easier, and more confident after they lose . . . but it is true for Clinton. Jon Stewart used to talk of the “buffering” you could see happening in the milliseconds between when Clinton was asked a question and when she answered; the moments when she played out the angles, envisioned the ways her words could be twisted, and came up with a response devoid of danger but suffused with caution. That buffering is gone.
[And I (RR) would add a description of this from a media person who wrote that Clinton 'measures her words by the teaspoon and then sprays them with disinfectant.' Sorry I've lost the name to be credited with that metaphor.]
"In our conversation, she was as quick and confident as I’ve seen her, making the case for her politics without worrying too much about . . . the possible lines of offense. . . . In our discussion, she lit into Bernie Sanders’s single-payer plan, warned that Donald Trump is dragging us down an authoritarian path, spoke openly of the role racism and white resentment played in the campaign, and argued that the outcome of the 2016 election represented a failure of the media above all. This was Clinton unleashed, and while she talked about what happened, it was much more interesting when she talked about what she believed should have happened."
A transcript edited for length and clarity can be read at:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/13/16298120/hillary-clinton-what-happened-interview
I highly recommend it, not only for understanding a woman who almost broke the ultimate glass ceiling, but for a better understanding of our whole political process as it has come to be. You're not likely to find a better delineation of the difference between pragmatism and idealism in politics.
Ralph
I highly recommend it, not only for understanding a woman who almost broke the ultimate glass ceiling, but for a better understanding of our whole political process as it has come to be. You're not likely to find a better delineation of the difference between pragmatism and idealism in politics.
Ralph
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