Is Donna Brazile signaling the Clinton era is over?

Can it really be true? Are we finally over the years of both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s coordinated grip on American politics? From all indications, the book scheduled for release November 7 written by former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House,” will certainly bring that question into play. In order to protect her own reputation, she has clearly thrown Hillary Clinton under the bus.

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After reading reports of her book, Brazile appears to be in full atonement mode and hoping to remain in the good graces of whomever the Democratic nominee is in 2020.  Why else would she write about considering replacing Hillary Clinton with Joe Biden as Clinton became incapacitated by what was described as pneumonia? Is it to make clear she was only thinking of the party’s success over her Clinton loyalty? (Washington Post)

Brazile describes in wrenching detail Clinton’s bout with pneumonia. On Sept. 9, she saw the nominee backstage at a Manhattan gala and she seemed “wobbly on her feet” and had a “rattled cough.” Brazile recommended Clinton see an acupuncturist.

Two days later, Clinton collapsed as she left a Sept. 11 memorial service at Ground Zero in New York. Brazile blasts the campaign’s initial efforts to shroud details of her health as “shameful.”

Whenever Brazile got frustrated with Clinton’s aides, she writes, she would remind them that the DNC charter empowered her to initiate the replacement of the nominee. If a nominee became disabled, she explains, the party chair would oversee a complicated process of filling the vacancy that would include a meeting of the full DNC.

After Clinton’s fainting spell, some Democratic insiders were abuzz with talk of replacing her — and Brazile says she was giving it considerable thought.

In the end she wasn’t strong or brave enough to buck the Clinton machine and certainly not able to begin the process of replacing Hillary as the nominee. It was never a decision that was solely her own anyway. While she thought about replacing Clinton and Kaine with Joe Biden and Senator Cory Booker, she couldn’t unilaterally make this decision.

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But DNC rules give the party’s chairman the authority to set the ball in motion. (NBC News)

“In the event of death, resignation or disability of a nominee of the Party for President or Vice President after the adjournment of the National Convention, the National Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee shall confer with the Democratic leadership of the United States Congress and the Democratic Governors Association and shall report to the Democratic National Committee, which is authorized to fill the vacancy or vacancies,” the party’s Convention Call states.

Furthermore, the DNC bylaws state the chair is the one to call “a special meeting to fill a vacancy on the National ticket.”

C’mon. Who really believes that Brazile would replace the first Democratic woman nominee for president with an old white guy? Sweetening the pot with a young African-American senator wasn’t going to make that decision go over any easier. So, yes, she comes clean on her claim. “I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her. I could not do this to them,” Brazile writes.

Not passing up the opportunity to paint herself the victim here, though, Brazile goes on about how poorly treated she was by the Clinton campaign and what really bad shape the DNC was in when she took its leadership. She even accuses them of treating her like a slave. Because, of course.

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Finally, she discusses her anger over how Bernie Sanders was completely screwed out of becoming the party’s nominee. It sounds to me like she was really most angry that she was just another person on Hillary’s payroll instead of any remorse for Sanders.

Donna Brazile is looking out for Donna Brazile. She wants to remain a player in the Democratic party and she’ll do it playing the victim if she has to. How Clintonian.

Karen Townsend is a guest author at Hot Air. You can read her other work at her Pondering Penguin blog. A longtime political blogger and activist, she enjoys writing about life and culture, too.

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David Strom 5:20 PM | April 19, 2024
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