As for the book, it is actually the first I have encountered that was written so a politician could say, “I wrote about this at length in my book.” It exists to offer a template for various narratives and allow her to suggest she’s already well covered the issue at hand, which the interviewer would know if he were better informed.
It is written in the style of the current Ladies’ Home Journal in that it patronizes even as it panders. It is an extended attempt to speak “their language,” the language of a huge imagined audience of women. There are silver linings of defeat. She brims with ideas, advocates, gets to yes, chooses her own team. There are clear-eyed assessments and daunting challenges. The State Department neighborhood is known as “Foggy Bottom.” She proudly quotes a speech she gave in 2008. “You will always find me on the front lines of democracy—fighting for the future.”
Ladies and gentleman, that is the authentic sound of 2016. Shoot me now.
Why do Democratic politicians talk like this about themselves, putting themselves and their drama at the ego-filled center, instead of policy ideas, larger meanings, the actual state of the country? In this she is just like Barack Obama.
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