Kate Linnea Welsh: Hillary Clinton

About President Obama:

1. "He would call from time to time and share his thoughts on the race. 'Don't try to be hip, you're a grandma,' he'd tease. 'Just be yourself and keep doing what you're doing.'"

2. He thought she overdid it in 2008, so he kept trying to get her to rest more in 2015-16. Aw.

3. When she called the President right after she called Trump to concede: "The President said everything right. He told me I'd run a strong campaign, that I had done a great deal for our country, that he was proud of me. He told me there was life after losing and that he and Michelle would be there for me."

About Bill:

1. After her concession speech: "I'm so proud of you... That was a great speech. History will remember it."

2. He has opinions on the relative merits of CBS procedurals: he "insists" NCIS: Los Angeles is the best of the franchise.

3. "I remember how hours after she was born, Bill walked around the hospital room with tiny Chelsea in his arms, explaining everything to her. We didn't want to waste a moment."

4. Bill was the first father that hospital ever let be in the operating room during a C-section, and it sounds like they only allowed it because he was Governor and insisted.

5. "In a minute he will reorganize our bookshelves for the millionth time, which means I will not be able to find any of my books, and once I learn the new system, he'll just redo it again, but I don't mind because he really loves to organize those bookshelves."

6. "He never once asked me to put my career on hold for his. He never once suggested that maybe I shouldn't compete for anything - in work or politics - because it would interfere with his life or ambitions. There were stretches of time in which my husband's job was unquestionably more important than mine, and he still didn't play that card. I have never felt like anything but an equal."

7. "On our first date, we went to the Yale University Art Gallery to see a Mark Rothko exhibit. The building was closed, but Bill talked our way in."

Morning Coffee (9/27/17)

Me elsewhere: Young Sheldon wasn't as bad as I feared.

!!! Saudi Arabia Says It Will End Ban And Allow Women To Drive

A New Study Shows Just How Many Americans Were Blocked From Voting in Wisconsin Last Year

Surprise! Trump’s tax ‘reform’ looks like tax cuts for the rich

I'm glad he's representing us so well on the world stage: Where is 'Nambia'? President Trump 'invents' African country

Of course: Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore Whips Out A Handgun At Rally

Undercover with the Alt-Right

Barbara Blaine, Who Championed Victims of Priests’ Abuse, Dies at 61

Goodbye, For Now, To A Vital Source For Native American News

Ooh! Lost Rubens portrait of James I's 'lover' is rediscovered in Glasgow (They're talking about the Duke of Buckingham and I'm not sure why "lover" is in quotes, as I think that relationship is pretty well-documented.)

Good. They should be better about this IN GENERAL because it happens to all sorts of authors, not just Hillary: Amazon Removed Hundreds of Reviews of Hillary Clinton’s Book From People Who Probably Didn’t Read It

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Over 100 Things in Hillary's Book That Made Me Like Her Even More, Part 7 - THE END.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.

OKAY, this is the end. Of this list, at least. Come back tomorrow for (one post only, I swear, of) awesome things in the book about OTHER people. Mostly Bill.

121. "Of course, it helps when the candidate who gets the most votes wins the election. What an idea!"

122. She calls out Biden for saying no one related to the campaign talked about the middle class: "I find this remarkable, considering that Joe himself campaigned for me all over the Midwest and talked plenty about the middle class."

123. "That said, a small but still significant number of left-wing voters may well have thrown the election to Trump. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, called me and my policies 'much scarier than Donald Trump' and praised his pro-Russia stance. This isn't surprising, considering that Stein sat with Putin and Michael Flynn at the infamous Moscow dinner in 2015..." She then says Stein "wouldn't be worth mentioning" (ha!) except that she got enough votes in Those Three States to swing the results.

124. "Maybe, like actress Susan Sarandon, Stein thinks electing Trump will hasten 'the revolution.'"

125. "When I said, 'You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,' I was talking about well-documented reality."

126. "Democrats have to continue championing civil rights, human rights, and other issues that are part of our march toward a more perfect union. We shouldn't sacrifice our principles to pursue a shrinking pool of voters who look more to the past than the future."

127. "That vision did win the popular vote by nearly three million (yes, I'm going to keep mentioning that)."

128. "None of the factors I've discussed here lessen the responsibility I feel or the acing sense that I let everyone down. But I'm not going to sulk or disappear. I'm going to do everything I can to support strong Democratic candidates everywhere. If you're reading this book, I hope you'll do your part too."

129. "Why is the burden of opening our hearts only on half the country?"

130. "I was feeling restless and needed an emotional boost. I thought it might help to visit Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt's cottage, which is one of my favorite historical sites." I too visit historical sites when I need an emotional boost.

131. "Unless people stay engaged and find ways to translate protests into political power, we aren't going to stop Trump's agenda or win future elections."

132. "Get involved in a cause that matters to you . . . Don't just think about it or talk about it: support a cause with your money, your time, and your talents."

133. "My advice would be simple: Don't let the bastards get you down. Stay true to yourself and your values. Most of all, keep going."

134. "Seriously, if anyone is thinking of quitting the Republican Party, now would be a good time."

135. About her campaign staff and volunteers, in the acknowledgments: "In fact, I asked the publisher whether we could print all your names here - more than 6,500 - but they said it would make this book twice as long. Please know that you are written in my heart, now and always."

<3 <3 <3

Monday, September 25, 2017

Over 100 Things in Hillary's Book That Made Me Like Her Even More, Part 6

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.

(I think we're looking at 7 parts total.)

101. "'What now?' I asked. 'Jim Comey...' Jennifer began, and I immediately knew it was bad."

102. "In the days that followed, some people thought I should fire Huma or 'distance myself.' Not a chance. She had done nothing wrong and was an invaluable member of my team."

103. She calls out Chris Cillizza by name for how many email pieces he wrote.

104. "I've read the Times for more than forty years and still look forward to it every day. I appreciate much of the paper's terrific non-Clinton reporting, the excellent op-ed page, and the generous endorsements I've received in every campaign I've ever run."

105. She calls Putin a manspreader.

106. On Trump: "He dreams of Moscow on the Potomac."

107. She calls Assange an odious hypocrite.

108. I loved this subtle takedown: "I wondered who told Trump to say that."

109. "We sometimes joked that if we wanted the press to pay attention to our jobs plan, which I talked about endlessly to little avail, we should leak a private email about it."

110. "I wasn't just a former candidate trying to figure out why she lost. I was also a former Secretary of State worried about our nation's national security."

111. On the whole Russia story: "It's like something out of one of the spy novels my husband stays up all night reading."

112. "I love when CNN does real-tim fact-checking in its on-screen chyron. More of that, please."

113. "We're all going to share our American future together - better to do so with open hearts and outstretched hands than closed minds and clenched fists."

114. She tells a cute story about joking with the election volunteers in Chappaqua about whether she'd have to show ID - and turns it into a point about how many Americans' votes are suppressed that way.

115. "I've always loved that quip from Winston Churchill about how democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others. I still believe that, even when our system feels totally nuts. (Electoral College, I'm looking at you!)"

116. "On Election Day, with the campaign all but finished, I had a chance to think in earnest about the work ahead. It was exciting."

117. On her concession call to Trump: "It was all perfectly nice and weirdly ordinary, like calling a neighbor to say you can't make it to his barbecue. It was mercifully brief."

118. "The speechwriters gingerly approached with a draft of a concession speech. I honestly wondered why anyone would want to hear from me ever again."

119. On why the media wants her to take all the blame: "Their real problem is they can't bear to face their own role in helping elect Trump, from providing him free airtime to giving my emails three times more coverage than all the issues affecting people's lives combined."

120. "Whenever I do a job, such as Senator or Secretary of State, people give me high ratings. But when I complete for a job - by running for office - everything changes."

Friday, September 22, 2017

100 Things in Hillary's Book That Made Me Like Her Even More, Part 5

Uh, confession: We're only 2/3 through the book. So I guess we'll continue this next week.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

81. "I've always thought about policy in a very practical way. It's how we solve problems and make life better for people."

82. On Bernie: "I nonetheless found campaigning against him to be profoundly frustrating. He didn't seem to mind if his math didn't add up or if his plans had no prayer of passing Congress and becoming law."

83. "I've always believed that it's dangerous to make big promises if you have no idea how you're going to keep them."

84. "I am proud to be a Democrat and I wish Bernie were, too."

85. "It was beyond frustrating that Bernie acted as if he had a monopoly on political purity and that he had set himself up as the sole arbiter of what it meant to be progressive, despite giving short shrift to issues such as immigration, reproductive rights, racial justice, and gun safety."

86. "Later, Chuck Todd of NBC's Meet the Press actually criticized me for being too prepared. I'm not sure how that's possible - can you be too prepared for something so important? Does Chuck ever show up for Meet the Press and just wing it?"

87. "We learned that many Republican voters didn't have any problem with big government, so long as it was big government for them."

88. "It may be hard for us to match his grandiose promises, because we still believe in arithmetic, but we can offer real results." (HERE she's talking about Trump, but funny how quotes could often be about him OR Bernie, huh?)

89. "My staff lived in fear that I'd start talking about 'the rise of the robots' in some Iowa town hall. Maybe I should have."

90. "Just as they were racing off to load the speech into the teleprompter, I said I had one more thing to add: 'I'm going to talk about Seneca Falls. Just put a placeholder in brackets and I'll take care of it.'"

91. "'I married my best friend,' Bill said. It was like hearing a love letter read out on national television."

92. "I plan to live long enough to see a woman win."

93. She almost added a universal basic income proposal to her campaign platform! And then didn't because they couldn't quite make the numbers work! I love her for both parts of that, actually.

94. "Usually when I meet people who are frustrated and angry, my instinctive response is to talk about how we can fix things." SAME.

95. "Republicans will always be better about defending yesterday. Democrats have to be in the future business."

96. "I was tempted to make voodoo dolls of certain members of the press and Congress and stick them full of pins."

97. In one of her emails to John Podesta: "Please wear socks to bed to keep your feet warm."

98. She's got a great story about a White House operator not believing she was who she said (while Secretary of State) and asked for her direct office line (even though she wasn't there). "I told him I had no idea what my direct office # was since I didn't call myself and I just hung up and am calling thru Ops like a proper and properly dependent Secretary [of] State - no independent dialing allowed."

99. "There's a certain poetic justice now in remembering how enthusiastic Michael Flynn was about sending me to jail."

100. "In fact, more of my emails are now publicly available than every other President, Vice President, and Cabinet Secretary in our country's history combined."