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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Hillary was a hugely talented presidential candidate who ran a very effective campaign (especially behind the scenes and within the establishment)

Here's where you lost me.

Hillary is a good servant but a bad master, by which I mean that having her in your administration is not a bad idea, but letting her be the boss giving orders to everyone else is a bad idea. I genuinely feared that if elected she would pick a fight with Putin to show off how strong she was, and I haven't changed my mind on that since.

Her campaign was trying to copy that of Obama, with the fixed notion that "Big Data won it for him". Adulatory articles in the media and online about how sophisticated it all was, that the old days of candidates on the doorstep were gone with the Ark, how Robbie Mook (and boy did nominative determinism strike again) was a genius. The campaign, in fact, got so cocksure they spent more time knifing each other in the back as to who would get the closest access to The Empress and thus the pick of the choice spoils once she was enthroned and the handing out of plum posts was in her gift.

Both comedians and current affairs shows made great hay of laughing at the very notion of Trump even having a snowball in Hell's chance in the election. There is still great Schadenfreude to be gotten from watching the smug prognosticators ending up with egg on their faces in videos like this. How's your "it'll be interesting tomorrow night when Hillary Clinton wins that Donald Trump will have lost this election from the very first day he announced" looking now, Hillary Rosen? Or your "big beautiful brown wall", Maria Cardona?

Afterwards, of course, everyone had hindsight as to what went wrong and what she should have done and how she should have listened to Bill when he was telling her when and where to campaign. The fact is, she was not very likeable with little to no charisma as a candidate, she seemed to change her mind with every wind that blew from focus groups, and the "basket of deplorables" remark - made to a fundraising dinner for rich LGBT folk where she and they laughed at the very notion of the plebians - didn't help her at all to overcome the "scolding schoolmarm" image.

having her in your administration is not a bad idea,

I mean, she was the architect of the Libya intervention, which went spectacularly badly. Similarly, she was in favor of Iraq II, which also went spectacularly badly. Her domestic proposals - notably Hillarycare - bombed spectacularly. She didn't have a significant record of either drafting/sponsoring major legislation while she was in the Senate, or being a particularly-effective bureaucrat while at state.

No, I don't think that having her in an administration would be a good idea.