Hillary Clinton's new book is entitled "What Happened".
Ordinarily, any non-fiction work would require a title with a little more information in it to entice potential readers to pick up, thumb through and/or get right down to the reading.
In Hillary's case, not even close to necessary.
With one possible exception.
Exception noted momentarily.
At the moment of Hurricane Irma's very unwelcome arrival in the Florida Keys, on its way to barometrically bitch slapping Florida, as a whole, and points/states north, having already having laid waste, metaphorically, and literally, to Cuba and other points Caribbean, Donald Trump hunkered down in front of the teleprompter and issued the following statement.
"My administration is
monitoring the situation around the clock, and we're in constant
communications with all of the governors, with the state and local
officials. We're doing everything possible to help
save lives and support those in need. Again, we've never seen anything
like this. Together, we will restore, recover and rebuild. We will do it
quickly."
"This
is a storm of enormous destructive power, and I ask everyone in the
storm path to heed all instructions, get out of its way. And government officials, I know you're working so
hard, you'll never work like this, and I appreciate also your bravery.
Property is replaceable but lives are not, and safety has to come
first."
Those among us with a semblance of oration savvy would have likely begun wrapping it up from there, with a little "with continued commitment" razz and some "can do/will do " matazz and kaboomed the big finish with a dynamic, drum roll, please, "God bless you and God bless America", exit state right.
Donald Trump is not one of those with a semblance of oration savvy among us.
"I
think now,", he continued, "with what's happened with the hurricane, I'm gonna ask for a
speed up," he said. "I wanted a speed up anyway, but now we need it
even more so. So we need to simplify the tax code, reduce taxes very
substantially on the middle class, and make our business tax more
globally competitive. We're the highest anywhere in the world right
now."
Well, gee. There it is.
As predictable, and, at the same time, unwelcome, as the hemorrhoid resulting from trying to force something instead of just letting it happen naturally.
The inevitable addendum to the address, the rider attached to the rhetoric.
The "this should be the end of my inspirational, presidential reassurance to you and your loved ones, but I'm a blunt tool who wouldn't know inspiration if it came roaring into Mar A Lago at 155 miles per....
Oh. Wait.
And said addendum translates out a little something like this.
"While you're either living in terror that your house is about to blow up around you or your going to see ten feet of water come crashing into your living room, while your primary, primal thoughts are focused on the simple things in life, like, simply keeping you and your family alive, let me tell you about why the visit of this death dealing mass of wind and rain and flood and thunder and lightning and tornadoes is a wonderful opportunity for me tell you how I want to give all my rich crony homies a massive tax break and wrap that tax break up in the same old tired package of 'I'm really doing it all for you' but you are going to get screwed in the end, bet the farm, baby."
Or the lanai, of course, depending on your rural versus suburban status there in the Sunshine State.
The knee jerk, bet the lanai, go-to response to criticism of Trump's tactlessness ("...paging Miss Conway.....Kellyanne Conway to the stage, please...") will be something along the lines of "The President was offering heartfelt support of those in the storm's path along with The President's assurance that The President believes that The President's administration is the most effective and efficient thing to come along since the Miracle Mop and that The President wants those who will be left devastated by the storm to rest assured that The President really wants them to know that The President believes that they really do deserve the peace of mind that will come from knowing that The President wants the tax code to be repealed and replace....."
Oh. Wait.
Scratch that. Repeal and replace has been taken off the list of do-ables for the time being.
And, if you happen to be in search of a fun, new drinking game, keep an ear out, during those full throated defenses of the Donald, how many times the term "The President" is injected into the flow of the conversation.
It's almost as if they believe, or have been instructed, that the more they say it, the more it legitimizes it. And them. And him.
Meanwhile, the knee jerk, bet the lanai and throw in the wicker furniture, go-to response to Trump's tactlessness from the anti-Trump part of the population (all eighty million of them, give or take) of course, will almost certainly include the standard objection/mild outrage at "politicizing a tragic event".
And there's probably a case to be made that that's exactly what he's doing.
But let's put a pin in that.
Or more effectively and efficiently, let's simply concede that because we all, all of us, Trump friend and foe alike, have long ago been shown, to an immoral certainty, that the man will say anything, as many times as he perceives it needs to be said, to get what he wants when he wants in whatever form he wants.
There's a broader theme and a larger point.
And that will bring us back to Hillary.
Her book is her take on the reasons why she wasn't elected President last November.
The use of the catchy and, at the same time, enigmatic, two word title covering both the what...and the why.
Pretty sure there's one why that doesn't get a lot of ink in her interpretation.
Not so much because she didn't want to include it, necessarily, but because it didn't rank high on her personal radar.
When it probably should have.
Because from this set of eyes and ears, it was, in the POV of a lot of those in love with their new red caps, numero uno on the list of why.
Because Donald is seen a member of the family.
A particular kind of member of the family.
We've all got one. Some of us even are one.
Over a year ago, when it became apparent that the Trump candidacy was no longer an irritating, if comic, pebble in the national shoe and was fast turning into a surreal boulder rolling down the mountain, I spent a fair amount of time on my, then, weekly news/talk radio show dealing with the inanity, bordering on insanity, of people who suddenly found obtuse to be a quality they liked in a candidate for office.
Even the millions of those people who didn't even necessarily know what the word obtuse means.
And time and time, and time, again, throughout the primary season and, then, fall election campaign, as Trump made putting a foot into a mouth the latest sensation sweeping the nation, I heard or, truth be told, endured callers to the show who, when asked how they could possibly continue to support a man so egregiously lacking in the basic social skills, responded with what, to this admittedly jaded, satirical mind, the six word phrase that pays.
"He tells it like it is."
It became the predictable go-to response of those who had fallen deeply, almost dreamily, in love with the idea of making America great again.
And apparently not just because it came with a cap.
My go-to response became equally predictable.
"I had an uncle who used to get stinking drunk at family wedding receptions and always somehow found a way to get hold of the microphone. Let me clue you. Telling it like it is isn't always necessarily a virtue."
Pretty early on, I could tell, on the scale of this side or that, where my perspective fell.
Mostly on deaf ears.
Because when you're in love, you're in love, you're in love, you're in love, you're in love with a wonderful guy?
You're in love. Whether he's actually a wonderful guy or not.
And let's not forget the cap. That sealed a lotta deals.
Hillary's book is filled with names, dates, reasons, excuses, rationalizations, justifications, yada, yada about why Donald got to move into the big house on Pennsylvania Ave and she got the gift of time to write a book about why Donald got to move into the big house on Pennsylvania Ave.
And I haven't read the book. May or may not. Nothing she offers will change my own mind when answering the question implied by the title of that book.
What happened was that enough people in enough states with sufficient Electoral College votes to dramatically plot twist the predicted outcome of the 2016 election dramatically twisted the plot.
For no better reason than they felt some kind of Freud meets Duck Dynasty meets Kafka kinship to a guy who wouldn't know grace or style or class or tact or subtlety or inspiration if it came roaring into Mar-A-Lago at 155 mph.
The kind of blunt tool of a guy who doesn't think twice about showing up stinking drunk at family weddings and grabbing the mic.
The kind of blunt tool of a guy who doesn't think twice about tacking a taxation oration on the end of what was, it turns out, pretty much only in theory, supposed to be a presidential address of support and assurance and...wait for it...leadership.
I said, at the outset, that the title of Hillary's book required no lengthy explanations.
Because anybody with a pulse knows exactly what she means by "what happened".
If there's a nit to pick, it might only be that the punctuation could have gone either way.
What Happened. Period. As in "here's what happened".
Or...
What Happened? Question mark. As in "how in God's infinite universe, could this have happened?"
Moot point, in the end.
Because either declaratively, or interrogatively, the bottom line remains.
What happened was that we've all got a blunt tool in the family.
And family is family.
Most especially when it comes with a cap.
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