No, HIllary Clinton, You've Got It All Wrong.

I'm going to put the concluding paragraph of this article at the beginning. If you don't read anything else, read this:

Nowhere in What Happened will you read these words, "I understand now. The America people didn't like me because I was a thoroughly unlikeable and immoral person who made it very clear that I was only in it for myself - well, for the power and the wealth." But that's the truth, and that's the bottom line.

Now, if you're still interested, you can read the article from top to bottom.

Hillary Clinton is making the talk-show rounds, plugging her new book, What Happened, which is a very whiny and self-absorbed analysis of why she lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump.

No, I haven't read the book. But I've heard a lot of the interviews — too many. Clinton's main contention is that it's everybody else's fault that she lost. Here, in no particular order, are my observations on her comments. Please note that I'm not citing any polls or news articles to support my assertions. I don't feel like doing that today. If that hurts my credibility, tough. Clinton and her election opponent, Donald Trump, did (and do) the same thing.

1. I agree that the Russians were undoubtedly involved.

2. I agree that James Comey's bumbling undoubtedly played a part.

3. Point 2 notwithstanding, I don't think the emails themselves had anything to do with it. But Clinton's attitude, that she could do whatever she wanted and that she was above the law, had a lot to do with it.

4. Trump's charisma, and the voters who were deceived by his charisma, played a big part. Hillary Clinton has never had charisma. See also Kennedy vs. Nixon, Bill Clinton vs. anybody, and Reagan vs. anybody. Charisma wins votes.

5. I disagree that sexism (or misogyny, a stronger word) played a big part. Come on, this is the year 2017. Sexism may have played a part in the right-wing fringes of the Republican Party, but I don't think it played as big a part with the general electorate as Clinton says it did. I think that the majority of Americans are not opposed to a woman as president. After all, we've witnessed successful female heads of state in Great Britain, Germany, India and Israel, to name only a few, but those women were (and are) great leaders and, ahem, statesmen. Clinton's not even in the same league with them.

5a. To put it more bluntly: American voters aren't against electing a woman president. But they are against electing Hillary Clinton.

5b. Do you remember, "Who wants to see a woman president?" Clinton herself shouted this from the podium at a rally, at the beginning of the primary season. She got an overwhelmingly positive response. There's no difference between "Vote for me because I'm a woman!" and "They didn't vote for me because I'm a woman." She was not above using sexism to her own advantage.

6. And point 5a, of course, brings up the Electoral College. She can blame that antiquated institution for her loss, but hey, the Republican side knew how to play the game, and they played it very well. She could have done the same thing. She chose not to. That's her own fault, and nobody else's.

7. Simply put, the American people didn't like her. They thought she was devious, manipulative and underhanded. They thought she was greedy and dishonest, exemplified by the Clintons' looting of the White House when they left it in January 2001. They thought she was self-centered, mean, petty and cruel, especially to those in subordinate positions. They thought, accurately, that she wanted the office of President just so she could collect more power and wealth for herself.

8. Who can forget:
- "I could have stayed at home and baked cookies," her disenfranchisement of half of the electorate in the country;
- "I will do whatever it takes to get elected [president]," justifying her campaign for the U.S. Senate;
- "What difference does it make?" her handwaving dismissal of the Benghazi debacle/tragedy;
- "Get the @#$%* away from me!" to her Secret Service escorts;
- and many other condescending, insulting, dismissive, or imperious remarks? To mix metaphors, she opened her mouth and shot herself in the foot, over and over again.

9. She was married to Bill Clinton. The country still hasn't forgiven him, and they still think she was complicit in some of his debauchery. This may not be fair, but it's real.

10. Many of you will reread point 7 and say in Clinton's defense, "Hey, you can say all these same things about Trump," and you will be right. Everything I said in #7 about Clinton can be said about Trump (except, maybe, looting the White House). Donald Trump was just as bad a choice for president as Hillary Clinton. I've already talked about that, in this article and this article, for example. Neither of them should ever have won their party's nomination, let alone the general election.

Nowhere in What Happened will you read these words, "I understand now. The America people didn't like me because I was a thoroughly unlikeable and immoral person who made it very clear that I was only in it for myself - well, for the power and the wealth." But that's the truth, and that's the bottom line.