It’s not because she keeps flailing and failing to justify her candidacy. She’s not Jack Bauer and anyone who buys this particular line will buy anything. Hillary’s candidacy does depend to some extent on widespread gullibility, which is never in short enough supply.

On Saturday night in Dubuque she pounced, arguing she risked her life on White House missions in the 1990s, including a hair-raising flight into Bosnia that ended in a “corkscrew” landing and a sprint off the tarmac to dodge snipers.

“I don’t remember anyone offering me tea,” she quipped.

Woo-hoo, she’s a regular International Woman of Mystery. This stuff doesn’t qualify her for the presidency. Especially when she keeps saying things that ought to disqualify her for that job.

On Sunday she was campaigning in a church, as Democrats seem to get away with doing year in and year out, and she left early before the preacher could preach. Hey, she’s busy. But it’s what she said while she was in the pulpit — a place no Clinton should ever occupy unironically — that gets at what she is.

The New York senator also highlighted a chapter in her book, “It Takes a Village,” that talks about every child needing a champion. She said most children have someone in that role and she’d like to fulfill it for the whole country.

“I think the American people need a president who is their champion. And I’ve been running to be that champion — to get up every single day and do all that I can to make sure I provide the tools that every single American is entitled to receive and make the most out of their own lives,” Clinton said.

No. Just…no. The nation’s children may need champions and heroes, and for them we ought to hold up our troops, our police and our firefighters and people who selflessly do extraordinary things with their lives. We should tell them about people like Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith, and we should tell them less and less about rock stars and Hollywood’s profane icons. We should hold up as heroes people who achieve great things against overwhelming odds or after long years of hard, patient work. We can even hold up fictional super heroes and the occasional sports figure as examples of what heroism can look like.

But the adults of this country do not need a “champion” who sees herself as “providing the tools” for us to live our lives. We’ve taken to calling this kind of thinking “nanny state,” but it’s more than that. It’s authoritarian, whether it comes from Hillary Clinton or Michael Bloomberg or whoever espouses it. And it’s also, in this case, disturbingly narcissistic. It’s not really about the people of the country, it’s about Hillary being adored by the people of the country. That’s why she puts herself at the center of her little dream. It’s about setting herself up as our beneficent master giving you what you’re “entitled to receive,” not what you’ve earned. Which means she’ll be taking from some according to their means and giving to others according to their needs.

This we do not need. No thanks. She must be stopped.

More: I meant to ad that of all the people named as being on that flight with Hillary, the one who’s most qualified to be president is Sinbad. At least he’s an Air Force veteran.