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After entering the White House in 2009, President Barack Obama went on his famous “apology” tour. Now, Hillary Clinton, having failed to win the White House in 2016, is currently on an “I’m owed an apology” tour.
In an interview for an article by New York Magazine published Friday, Clinton has apparently moved past “gracious Hillary” and “relaxed in the woods Hillary” and has now moved into “angry Hillary” mode.
“I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by [former FBI Director James] Comey and the Russians, aided and abetted by the suppression of the vote, particularly in Wisconsin,” she complains, adding voter suppression to her normal narrative blaming Russia/Comey.
Clinton resurrected the Russia/Comey excuse in an interview earlier this month with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour when she also called herself “part of the resistance” and claimed, “If the election had been on October 27, I would be your president.” But now she is taking it to the next level.
In the New York Magazine article, called “Hillary Clinton Is Furious. And Resigned. And Funny. And Worried,” the predominant mood is the fury — not the resignation, worry, or her alleged sense of humor. In the interview, Clinton pounces on the press — particularly the “advocacy press on the right.”
The press, she believes, didn’t make it any easier. “Look, we have an advocacy press on the right that has done a really good job for the last 25 years,” she says. “They have a mission. They use the rights given to them under the First Amendment to advocate a set of policies that are in their interests, their commercial, corporate, religious interests. Because the advocacy media occupies the right, and the center needs to be focused on providing as accurate information as possible. Not both-sides-ism and not false equivalency.”
She then blasts MSNBC and The New York Times for hiring moderate conservatives such as George Will and Bret Stephens, seething: “Why … would … you … do … that?” before saying 66 million people voted for her and “you know, the crazy third-party people” — a reminder of her famous “deplorable” comment that helped doom her candidacy.
Sixty-six million people voted for me, plus, you know, the crazy third-party people. So there’s a lot of people who would actually appreciate stronger arguments on behalf of the most existential challenges facing our country and the world, climate change being one of them! It’s clearly a commercial decision. But I don’t think it will work. I mean, they’re laughing on the right at these puny efforts to try to appease people on the right.
Clinton also blames her opponents in the primary and the general election for capitalizing on anger. When asked if Trump and Sanders capitalized on anger, Clinton says, “Yes,” and adds (incorrectly) “And I beat both of them.”
Clinton is also happy, when prodded, to blame her defeat on sexism. She believes, for instance, that the viciousness of the attacks against her was because women are seen as less likable as they become more successful.
“Once I moved from serving someone — a man, the president — to seeking that job on my own, I was once again vulnerable to the barrage of innuendo and negativity and attacks that come with the territory of a woman who is striving to go further,” she said.
Author Rebecca Traister — who at one point mulls “how a pussy-grabbing goblin managed to gain the White House over an experienced woman” — notes that online searches for “misogyny” have increased.
Asking Clinton if she can still believe people don’t know what misogyny means, Clinton responds: “Why, yes. I guess I can believe that.”
The New York Magazine article was published the same day as Clinton gave a commencement address at her alma mater, in which she warned against politicians who invent their own facts and “attempt to control reality.”
“When people in power invent their own facts and attack those who question them, it can mark the beginning of the end of a free society,” she said. “That is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done. … They attempt to control reality.”
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY