Hillary Clinton was featured this weekend in the Washington Post for what I suspect was supposed to be a heartwarming story of encouragement. But the two-time failed presidential candidate comes away from this episode looking embittered and self-centered.
An 8-year-old Maryland girl who lost her race to become class president to a boy was surprised when she received a personal letter of consolation from Clinton, who also lost a race to a boy.
“As I know too well, it’s not easy when you stand up and put yourself in contention for a role that’s only been sought by boys,” reads the letter, which Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told the Post was authentic. It continues:
While I know you may have been disappointed that you did not win President, I am so proud of you for deciding to run in the first place. … The most important thing is that you fought for what you believed in, and that is always worth it. As you continue to learn and grow in the years ahead, never stop standing up for what is right and seeking opportunities to be a leader, and know that I am cheering you on for a future of great success.
I think this story is supposed to be touching, and it’s sweet that Clinton reached out to the kid, but the content of the letter makes the former secretary of state look like a champion grudge-holder. A simple “Good job!” would’ve sufficed. But Clinton didn’t do that. Instead, she used a letter to an 8-year-old girl as an opportunity to gripe once again about her supposed struggle against the patriarchy and losing the 2016 presidential election. That on its own is — odd. Then you add in the fact that complaining about losing to President Trump really makes the letter about Clinton and not so much its recipient, and now it really feels like the note was written by a person who is maybe just a little obsessed with talking about that one time she almost won. It’s like watching a burned out jock patrol his old high school parking lot in search of someone who will listen to his story about the one time they could’ve gone to state had coach just listened. As the political activist group founded to defend Bill Clinton’s sexual abuses would say: Move on.
But that’s not all. The Post’s report on the letter also makes just about everyone involved in this story look like they’ve lost their minds.
“The youngster attends Friends Community School, a small, private Quaker school in College Park, Md., and is a third-grader in a combined third- and fourth-grade class. Martha said that as part of a unit on U.S. government, elections for class president and Congress were held, and she decided to run for the top job. Her opponent, she said, was a popular fourth-grade boy,” the report reads.
It added, “The election was held, but six ballots were declared invalid because students had not filled them out correctly. Another vote was taken. Martha lost by a single vote, she said, and was declared vice president.”
It’s weird that I now know about any of this, but OK. That’s not the part that gets me. Where the story goes off the rails is in the following paragraphs:
Democratic political activist Bryan Weaver said some of Albert Morales’s friends saw his Facebook posts, got caught up in the election and were upset when Martha lost. ‘A friend of mine who runs a bar on U Street welled up with tears,’ he said.
If you’re tearing up over a third- to fourth-grade class president race, and the people running aren’t even your own kids, I don’t know what to tell you.
