Ready, Dems? Hillary Wants a Starring Role

For a while after the 2016 election and the inauguration, there were long breaks -- mercifully -- when we didn’t hear from Clinton. She was grieving, raging, whatever those five stages of electoral defeat are that one must journey through. But she’s healed and liberated and energized now, downright perky in fact, and is eager to rejoin the community of newsmakers. No matter that many Democrats aren’t over their grief, and still blame her for Trump, she’s out of her shell and truly enjoying it.

The formerly clammed-up Clinton provides an intimate look at her life in the documentary, sharing the ugly times -- Monica Lewinsky, etc. -- along with the good. It is her project, one she sought just months after her defeat to make use of the extensive documentation from her 2016 campaign, to share her story and her glory. The filmmakers even tried tracking down Republican validators but couldn’t find one participant, and they admit former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told them directly he would rather “stick needles” in his eye. All these years and crushing defeats later, Clinton’s blindness is alive and well.

“Does it get discouraging? Do you feel like you want to pull the covers over your head? Yes. But it's just not how I'm made, and it's not what I think this country that I love and I've tried to serve should stand for,” she told the interviewer. “So, I get back in the fray.”

Democrats are likely hoping Clinton will contain her urges to compare herself with the nominee they anoint in July, and refrain from such comments until at least after November. As they take on a stronger Trump than she did, they would like 2020 to be as free of the stench of the 2016 defeat as possible. Clinton may not allow it.