Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Hillary Clinton blames everyone but herself for her 2016 loss

Timothy B. Lee · Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 5:44 pm

Hillary Clinton doesn’t believe she or her campaign made any significant mistakes in the 2016 election. But speaking at the Code Conference on Wednesday, she had a long list of others she blames for her defeat.

She points the finger at Russia, fake news, the sorry state of the Democratic Party, sexism, and the media that covered the email scandal “like Pearl Harbor,” among others.

The Russian government

At the top of the list is the Russian government, which she believes orchestrated a vast campaign of fake news to discredit her candidacy.

“If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake,” Clinton told Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, editors of the Vox Media site Recode, which sponsors the conference. “They were connected to — as we now know — the 1,000 Russian agents who were involved in delivering those messages. They were connected to the bots that are just out of control.”

It’s not actually clear that “we now know” any of this. There was a lot of fake news swirling around Facebook in the closing weeks of the campaign, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it was the “vast majority.” The claim that there were 1,000 Russian agents spreading fake news comes from a March statement by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), but he described these as unconfirmed reports, not proven facts.

Clinton also notes that WikiLeaks released Clinton adviser John Podesta’s stolen emails — widely believed to have come from Russian hackers — within hours of the release of Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape.

Clinton speculated that the Trump campaign may have coordinated with the Russians to make sure the leaked information had maximum impact, arguing that it would have taken guidance from domestic political operatives to make sure the Russians released stolen documents at times when they would have the most effect.

Sexism

Clinton rejected the suggestion that giving six-figure speeches to Goldman Sachs and other special interest groups had hurt her candidacy.

She insinuated that the issue was tailored unfairly around gender: "Men got paid for the speeches they made, and I got paid for the speeches I made. It was used, I thought it was unfairly used, and all of that, but it was part of the background music."

Read more
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/31/15719342/hillary-clinton-2016-excuses

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