I think it's fair to say that the Hillary 2016 launch effortlessly surpassed expectations. It began with the official campaign announcement, deftly reminding us of her impressive résumé:
She's fought children and families all her career.
Indeed. Is "children" a reference to the Peter Pan of Pantsdownland, Little Boy Bill? Is "families" a reference to twin nymphettes he brought home after a ride on the Lolita Express with billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?
Or maybe she just likes slugging any neighborhood urchin minded to lay a hand on her own kid's threads? As part of the campaign launch, Chelsea Clinton discussed the need for "equal opportunity" in the pages of, er, Elle:
"One of our core values in this country is that we are the land of equal opportunity," Clinton told the magazine, "but when equal hasn't yet included gender, there is a fundamental challenge there that, I believe, having our first woman president — whenever that is — will help resolve."
Don't worry, it's not all glass-ceiling boilerplate, there's a photo spread, too:
Chelsea Clinton in a Gucci dress, Mateo New York bracelet, Cartier bracelet, Garland Collection ring, Halleh ring
Halleh to you, too. Don't ring us, we'll ring you. On to the next caption. Chelsea in...
Derek Lam blouse, Stella McCartney trousers, Bulgari necklace, Tiffany & Co. bracelets, Trollbeads bangle, Garland Collection ring, Halleh ring, Brian Atwood pumps
Bill Clinton pumps, too, but not usually in his campaign launch. The complimentary (I assume - it's a long time since any Clinton wrote a personal check) Brian Atwood pumps and Stella McCartney trousers and Bulgari necklace and Cartier bracelet were ponied up in order to support a candidacy that will fight for "everyday Americans":
Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.
Is "everyday Americans" quite the right expression here? Does Hillary mean "ordinary Americans", "non-Bulgari-necklaced Americans", "other-side-of-the-security-perimeter Americans"? Or does "everyday Americans" mean those who have to be here every day? As opposed to those out of the country jetting over international waters on the Lolita Express? Or spending three days a week giving seven-figure speeches to bored, layabout Saudi princes? Or ramping up more air miles than any other Secretary of State paying regal State visits to US diplomatic facilities in Libya, Yemen and other Clinton foreign-policy success stories?
As Barack Obama told Hillary last time round, "You're likeable enough." (Now there's a guy who knows how to fight families.) Yesterday's launch suggests that Mrs Clinton is going to be testing that proposition to the limits over the next 18 months.
The Republicans will doubtless do their usual snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-Monica routine and nominate Jeb. So it looks like only Elizabeth Warren in her one-thirty-second Cherokee warpaint can save us now. Like Hillary, her tribe spent many years fighting everyday Americans, every day. C'mon, Cheekbones, time to move off the reservation.
~In honor of the official launch of Rodham '16, we might run a few Clinton classics from the archives over the next few days, just as a taste of what we'll be in for until, gulp, January 2025. Let's start with a piece that's included in my most recent book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn, personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore, and will help you get through America's Hill to die on. It was written 12 years ago, when Hillary's memoir, Living History, chanced to be published a few days before J K Rowling's latest Harry Potter blockbuster. For some reason, I carelessly managed to get these two quite distinct authors confused. Nonetheless, with the benefit of hindsight, I note that my Harry Potterized history of the Clinton japes is, in fact, entirely accurate:
When Harry met Hillary
Well, the big day is here! Around the world this morning, bookstores opened their doors and millions of customers who'd spent the night waiting patiently in long lines eagerly stampeded to the counter and said, "Here's the copy of Living History I bought last week. I'd like my money back, please."
Sadly, the publisher's returns policy, conveniently footnoted on page 523 of the book, makes that impossible. But already industry observers are hailing the brilliant marketing strategy of ensuring that no details of the fictional bestseller were allowed to leak out until the checks for advance orders had cleared. It's that kind of sophisticated media campaign that has helped make its multimillionaire creator, J K Rodham, the world's most widely unread author.
It's hard to imagine now, but just a few years ago Rodham was financially dependent on the government, living in dreary public housing in an obscure part of Little Rock, and separated from her husband for a few hours while he was over at his brother's testing the new hot tub with a couple of cocktail waitresses. It was then that the soon to be world-famous author came up with her incredible plot: the story of an adolescent with magical powers who saves the world from the dark forces.
The result was Billy Clinter and the Philosophers Stoned, in which young Billy attends a party at Oxford and discovers his amazing ability to smoke but not inhale. With that first fantastic adventure of the shy misunderstood boy blessed - and burdened - with the awesome power to feel your pain with just one touch, young Billy Clinter became the world's most popular schoolboy.
Then came Billy Clinter and the Gusset of Fire, in which the vast right-wing conspiracy led by the sinister Lord Newt and Doleful Bob plant a hogtail disguised as a house elf in his hotel room in Little Hangleton. The elf tricks Billy into revealing his pocket sneakoscope and she glimpses its remarkable distinguishing characteristics, the strange lightning bolt along the side that signals the tremendous potency of his Slytherin Beaubaton. After this narrow escape, the young wizard gets into yet more scrapes in Billy Clinter and the Prisoner of Azkansas, in which Rodham tells the story of how young Billy and his much brainier friend, Hillary Granger, finally escape the hideous swamp of Azkansas after being trapped there for far longer than Hillary had expected to be.
But in the fourth volume events take a grim turn, as the careless schoolboy becomes aware that Professor Starr has in his laboratory a magic dress that could destroy all his and Hillary's plans. In Billy Clinter and the Chamber of Semen, Billy realizes that he splinched while he was apparating, which had never happened before. This is all the fault of Moaning Monica, the intern who haunts the anteroom at Housewhites and has the rare power of Parcelmouth, the ability to look into the eye of the Basilisk, the world's smallest snake, without being petrified. Is she a Niffler or a Death Eater? Billy cannot be sure. He looks to Housewhites' giant shambling groundskeeper Reno to protect him, but she's busy raining down fire on strange cults. As the book ends, their old friend Albus Bumblegore fails to become Headmaster of Housewhites after insufficient chads are found in his sorting hat.
With each new adventure, critics have predicted that the eternal schoolboy has run his course. But he keeps coming back. Nonetheless, there were strange rumors this time that J K Rodham was preparing to kill off the most popular character. It's been known for a while that she sees the series' future depending more on the much brainier though somewhat unlikeable Hillary Granger and the four female ghosts who write all her words.
According to the pre-publicity, the latest book - Living History: The Heavily Discounted Bulk Order of the Phoenix - would see Hillary rise from the ashes yet again, step out of Billy's shadow and prepare to take Housewhites back from the evil usurper Lord W Bush (as fans know, the W stands for Woldemort, but by tradition the name is never said). But instead it's mostly hundreds of pages about who Hillary sat next to at the many school dinners she's attended, with a brief passage about when Billy told her about Moaning Monica. According to the book, after spending the summer golfing with Uncle Vernon Jordan, he admits to Hillary that, although he did play quidditch, he never put his bludger in the golden snitch. Hillary thinks this is a lot of hufflepuff and, although he doesn't die, Billy finds himself under an impediment curse which means that for the rest of the book he hardly gets to take his wand out at all and Uncle Vernon starts calling him Nearly Headless Bill.
But has the series lost touch with its original fans? Many of those young readers from a decade ago are now in their mid-50s and may have difficulty still believing in fantastical tales about boys who don't inhale and girls who can't remember where they placed their billing records. "Oh, you say that every time," chuckles J K Rodham. "Believe me, they'll still be swallowing this stuff 20 years from now."
~and indeed, twelve years later, they're still swallowing this stuff. The above is from The [Un]documented Mark Steyn, personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore, and proceeds of which go to support my own epic battle against the Voldemort of Climate Change in the upcoming Mann vs Steyn trial of the century.