My problems with What Happened, Hillary Clinton's nearly 500-page self-proclaimed explanation for why she isn't the 45th President of the United States as she fully expected to be, began around page 7. Clinton was describing how it felt to be sitting on the inaugural platform on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol when Republican Donald Trump, the man who actually won the election, was sworn in: “The day was unusually warm.”
Actually, it wasn't. The temperature high for January 20, 2017 was 48 degrees Fahrenheit, only marginally higher than the 43 degrees that is Washington's average high for January 20. The bulk of the day was gloomy: iron-gray of sky, off-and-on rainy, and bone-chillingly damp. I know this because I happened to be outdoors on Pennsylvania Avenue on that very day for a very long time (about 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.), because, having donated to Trump's campaign along with my husband, I'd been invited along with him to shepherd fans of the new President who had traveled hundreds of miles to Washington to view the inaugural parade from grandstands. We and the other volunteers shivered on the sidewalk in our parkas and knit caps, and we slipped inside nearby public buildings for warmth whenever we got a chance.
But Clinton (or whoever ghostwrote that sentence) was trying to score a political point against Trump: “I had heard that the first batch of white [rain] ponchos that had arrived [for the West Porch VIPs] could have looked something like KKK hoods from a certain angle, and a sharp-eyed inaugural organizer quickly replaced them.”
Read Full Article »