Hillary Gives Her Victory Speech

It has never happened before.  It has virtually no relevancy today – if it ever did.  It is just one of those head-scratching moments.

You may recall Hillary Clinton as the former First Lady of Arkansas … as the former First Lady of America … as the former Senator from New York … as the former Secretary of State … and the former Democrat candidate for President of the United States.  She held a lot of powerful position in her lifetime, but President of the United States was not one of them.  She lost the election in 2016 to Donald Trump.

Apparently, she was so certain of defeating the controversial Trump that she had prepared only one speech for election night – a victory speech.  I can assume that because she never did officially concede to Trump.  There was no congratulatory phone call.

We might have assumed that Clinton had not prepared any speech.  She did give a concession speech and had no reason to give a victory speech.  But now we know that she did have that one victory speech because after more than four years, Clinton has decided to give her victory speech.

WHAT?

A delayed concession speech at this time would be weird, but at least have a modicum of appropriateness since she did lose.  It would have filled in a missing piece in the historic record.  But a victory speech?  What on God’s earth would have motivated Clinton to think there was ANY significance or benefit to hearing some words read from yellowed paper celebrating her nonexistent victory?

But there she was … reading the words of her acceptance of the Presidency – and the hopes and plans she had for the second Clinton administration.  Oh, it would have been a historic moment – the first woman President, the first married couple presidencies. Had she won, the speech would have been a significant part of the historic record.

Giving that speech now can only be described as weird.  Even the setting was weird.  She chose to orate from the comfort of an over-stuffed easy chair with a binder containing the speech on her lap.  Rather than the grandeur of a real presidential victory speech, Clinton looked and sounded like Granny reading a fairytale to the grandkids.  In as sense it was a fairytale.

At one point in her reading, she seemed to have gotten choked up a bit.  Perhaps the speech was a sad reminder of what she could have been.  After all, the presidency was her fondest ambition after hubby Bill completed his two terms.  She – and her followers – assumed with great certainty that she was going to win easily … handily … overwhelmingly.  Her loss is rated as the most shocking presidential elections in American history.

The reading of the old undelivered speech was so bizarre that it is almost impossible to divine a rational explanation.  My best guess is that she was missing the limelight – the phone does not ring much anymore.  It was one last (hopefully) opportunity to see her face on small screen – although she is planning some sort of online academic course.

Since the 2016 loss, Clinton has not had much to say of political significance about current events.  How much less significant is a never delivered four-year-old speech filled with platitudes?

It was an irrelevant mediocre uninspiring speech presented in a weird setting at an inappropriate time. It was not even a good final chapter to a long and admittedly impressive political career.

So, there ‘tis.