Looking forward

No more looking back

No more living in the past

Yesterday's gone and that's a fact

Now there's no more looking back

Got to be hard

Yeah, look straight ahead

That’s the only way it's going to be

Yesterday's gone and that's a fact

Now there's no more looking back

~~ “No More Looking Back” by The Kinks

Before I start, I’m thinking about everyone in the path of Hurricane Irma. I have lots of relatives and friends in Florida, and New Smyrna Beach is our home away from home. I hope everyone will be safe. Hunker down, pals.

This entry is prompted by a couple of recent stories about Hillary Clinton’s upcoming book. Excerpts are being released here and there as the book is hyped. First was the part about how the Yam was creeping on her at the one debate. There was also a bit about how Sanders’ attacks contributed to her loss. To be fair, she also claims full responsibility for the loss, because she was the candidate, after all. But then she continues to blame others.

When the excerpt about how she wishes she’d “gone nuclear” on James Comey came out, that was just a bridge too far for me. Don’t mess with James! Not on my watch!
Okay, okay, I know I’m biased here. I’m in total fangirl mode. And honestly, everyone knows that I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Hillary, and I was happy to cast my vote for her. But something about this just strikes me as so...off. I posted on Facebook that I really don’t feel like reading her book and it led to a very good discussion, which made me want to write more about it here.

I think that plenty of us were traumatized to such an extent by the outcome of the election (as well as the ongoing actions of the current administration) that we are just ready to move on and start working on the future rather than relitigating the past. She has every right to voice her thoughts and I hope she will continue to be a force in the Democratic party. She is a smart and formidable woman who has plenty of ideas and I completely disagree with anyone who says she should “sit down and shut up.”

But can she maybe be a force behind the scenes?

Friends commented that she has valid points when it comes to people to blame. I don’t disagree that many of the players were a part of her loss, including Sanders and Comey (Jaaaaaames). But it is absurd to blame it on any one person or any of several people. It was a total shitstorm of circumstances, and yes, plenty of the blame goes to her.

I can’t begin to tell you how conflicted I am about this because I truly did support her. It wasn’t a matter of “I don’t like her but I’ll hold my nose and vote for her.” I thought, and still think, that she was the most qualified to be President, and I think she would have been a good one. I feel almost guilty about my feelings about this, like it’s kind of a betrayal. I still love ya, Hills, but I really think it’s time to move on.

And that goes for much of the “older guard” of the Democratic party. I respect and admire many of these folks, and I adore Joe Biden. But NO. Don’t run for President again. I feel the same way about Sanders and Warren. Continue to make your mark in the Senate. You can do good things there and have a big influence. Can we have some younger blood, asked the 55-year-old?

Non-gratuitous picture of Comey

Many of my friends are still angry about Comey, but I still get his reasoning and understand his rationale. I’m not going to belabor the point, though. I’m not going to change their minds and they aren’t going to change mine. I’ve read enough and watched enough about his thinking to believe that he was doing it from a standpoint of how best to protect the FBI and the DOJ from any sort of partisan label. I’m really not sure how anyone can think that he was for one side or the other...he was directing investigations of both sides.

While I’m on the subject of Comey, the latest brouhaha is that he was drafting a memo that was circulated within a small group of FBI higher-ups. Some are up in arms, claiming that he’d decided the outcome of the Clinton email investigation well before the FBI closed the case and even before they’d interviewed Clinton herself. My initial thought was, “A draft memo doesn’t mean that.” He didn’t close the investigation until everyone was interviewed, but it doesn’t surprise me that he saw which way the investigation was going and that it probably wouldn’t result in any charges. He was a prosecutor, remember, so he knew what was prosecutable and what wasn’t. If things had changed, the outcome of the investigation would have changed. A draft memo circulated amongst a small group doesn’t mean that he’d made up his mind. I’ve read that it is not uncommon for court decisions to be written up as a draft before the final verdict is made. So this is a silly criticism.

Anyway...jeez, I’m tired. Sometimes I just get so tired of all the chatter, you know? I’m ready to move forward.