Fresh off of her insinuation that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is a “Russian asset,” the New York Times insists that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “living her best life.”
“Freed of the constraints of public office, Mrs. Clinton seems to be living her best life,” reporter Lisa Lerer wrote in a Monday op-ed. “Welcome to Hillary Unplugged.”
Lerer highlighted Clinton’s “giving zero, uh, cares” recently, including her jab at Gabbard, which was met with an avalanche of backlash but also some support. Clinton also tweeted out a fake presidential letter to troll President Trump and dropped out of an event that featured former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, moves the reporter argued signal the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee is finally “liberated.”
“For most of her public career, Mrs. Clinton has been constrained by the expectations of her position, be it first lady, senator or secretary of state. Now, after her stunning loss in 2016, it seems she finally feels liberated to speak her mind,” she wrote. “And she’s certainly stirring up a lot of drama while doing it. The two-time Democratic presidential candidate continues to loom large in the psyche of her party — both as heroine and villain.”
Clinton’s return to the spotlight comes as she and her daughter Chelsea promote their new book, The Book of Gutsy Women. But it also coincides with the 2020 presidential primary season, a race Democratic Party officials are privately wondering if she’ll join. In addition to taking a shot at Gabbard, a veteran and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, she also taunted Trump with the idea of a “rematch” of the 2016 election.
“Why should she stay silent — particularly given the strangeness of our political times? After all, former Secretary of State John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, has also flirted with running for president again,” Lerer pointed out. “And Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, admits to being a ‘lurker’ in online political discourse, with a secret Twitter account under the name Pierre Delecto.
“Mrs. Clinton, at least, trolls under her own name,” she added.
