Her bad instinct in that campaign, one that energized his base and the media against her, is emblematic of a deeper problem. Clinton’s vanity and self-regard lead her to consistently portray herself, falsely, as uniquely embattled. She may even see herself this way. It has worked well for her exactly twice. The first was the Lazio bullying incident. And the second was when she teared up on the way to victory in New Hampshire.

But the rest of the time it just leads her to tell embarrassing tall-tales about herself or her opponents. She claimed to have landed under “sniper fire” in Bosnia in 1996, ducking rounds between airplane and car, when in fact she was walking and chatting with comedian Sinbad. On her book tour she claimed to have been “dead broke” after leaving the White House, when she was living in a beautiful Chappaqua estate, and snapping up other nice pieces of real estate.

She uses this strategy whenever she feels political pressure. When her husband, the president, used a young White House intern for sexual gratification, Hillary blamed “a vast right-wing conspiracy” aimed at them. When she was pressed at hearings about the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, she huffed and showed signs of breaking down: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”