'What Happened' leaves key questions unanswered

It was perhaps appropriate that the release of Hillary Clinton’s book, “What Happened,” came in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Harvey.

The tour to promote the tale of arguably the most astonishing political defeat in this nation’s history in Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump last Nov. 8 skipped across the nation like the tornadoes spawned by the recent spate of terrible tropical storms.

Except the difference between the twisters and the book tour was that on Clinton’s stops, those fielding the questions did their best to limit any further damage.

But that was hardly a surprise as the numerous Q & A sessions came in the audiences of the folks who were among the many in the media who were Clinton’s cherished cheerleaders.

She made the rounds in the places one might expect: “The Today Show” on NBC, “The View” on ABC, CBS’ “Sunday Morning” and “Anderson Cooper 360” airing on CNN, among others.

And from carefully viewing some segments, or reading transcripts from others, one thing is clear. Across the board, Clinton herself still shares no personal responsibility for the loss that still leaves people shaking their heads either in disbelief, or guarded approval.

After all, this presidential election seemed to be the ultimate battle between the lesser of all the evils.

Clinton’s television tour was a “blame-a-thon” of epic, but hardly unexpected proportions, with swirling winds fanning failure in many directions.

Before Today hosts Savannah Gutherie and Matt Lauer — who spent two segments and nearly 18 minutes of airtime helping Clinton’s latest book not surprisingly climb the charts at Amazon — the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State quickly pointed to fired FBI Director James Comey.

Guthrie asked, “If we put all those factors in a pie chart, what’s the biggest chunk, what’s the biggest cause of your loss?”

“The determining factor was the intervention by Comey on Oct. 28,” Clinton said. “But for that intervention I would have won; it stopped my momentum,” claiming a 26 point lead in polling in a Philadelphia suburb was later cut in half.

Later, Lauer — boldy I might say considering his history of shamelessly being a Clinton camper — tried to ask about what he called how “self-inflicted wounds.” In other words, he deftly tried to get Clinton to admit personal blame in the loss.

No luck. As with any good politician, drifting away from the tough question is a key skill.

It seemed ironic that Clinton another piece in the blame game were charges of Trump’s misogyny and sexism. Surely some voters — and the candidate herself — had not forgotten the name Monica Lewinski?

Political cartoonist Joe Heller penned his version last week. He showed Clinton in front of a chalkboard with the book title, “What Happened.”

For each letter there was an appropriate excuse.

W was for Wisconsin where there was no need to campaign because the Cheeseheads always voted Democrat; H was for hackers who seemed to find some of her 32,000 missing emails; A equaled (white) Anger and T, the Bern.

But where Heller certainly captured things perfectly was with the H in Happened where a crossed out Hillary was replaced by Hate.

While I’ve not read “What Happened,” I’m sure it would be interesting if there were time. The many interviews seem to paint a good picture of what’s found in its cover.

The only thing more obvious than the book missing a proper punctuation mark at the end — the question mark — seems to be it not wishing to address what others have.

Earlier this year, authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes took on that mission in “Shattered” Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign.” Time Magazine reviewed the book and identified staff squabbles, Huma Abedin, underestimating Trump and a badly flawed candidate as reasons why Clinton had to write her book in the first place.

It’s darn difficult to have to look in the mirror sometimes when one has the most minor of personal failures, let alone trying to wrap one’s arms around a campaign that left many of us to ask, what happened?

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].