By Chuck Witt

So, Hillary Clinton has written a book. Actually, another book because she has written others, including one children’s book.

And the writing of her newest book is a good way to generate income. The Clintons have already amassed over $23 million from previous book deals. It is blatantly obvious that Mrs. Clinton will earn an additional several million dollars from her latest tome “What Happened?”

One doesn’t need a book of over 400 pages to answer that question: You lost!

Apparently the book takes whacks at a whole host of people who contributed to her loss, including her primary opponent Bernie Sanders. She apparently (from one who hasn’t read the book and has no intention of doing so) alleges that Senator Sanders aided her downfall by forcing her to take more extreme positions to counter the positions of his campaign.

Huh?

A candidate is forced to assume new positions because the ones assumed by her opponent prove to be more popular than her own? Hardly a strong argument for her failure to prevail.

It seems far more likely that the reason for her failure had to do with the possibility that voters trusted her less than they trusted her opponent and that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) acted importunately to bolster her campaign to the detriment of Sanders’ and wound up with a candidate who had less chance of success. Numerous polls during the primary indicated that Sanders had better odds of winning against the Republican candidate than did she.

One can hope that Mrs. Clinton’s book will reveal the duplicity of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile, two women high in the DNC hierarchy who were bound and determined to see Clinton as the candidate regardless of the potential consequences.

And perhaps Mrs. Clinton discusses the idea that the American public had just grown tired of the Clintons being so constantly in the news, with her election to the Senate, her appointment as Secretary of State, her and Bill’s continual appearances and speaking engagements, and her not-too-well-concealed desire for higher office. What greater aspiration could one have than to be the wife of a former President and to then be elected to the same office?

Mrs. Clinton will be 70 years old in October of this year. It’s time for her to take advantage of being an “elder statesman,” to become an occasional contributor on talk shows or opinion discussions or to just find a comfortable rocking chair, sit on her front porch (assuming one of her houses has a front porch) and enjoy her grandchildren the way so many other grandparents do.

And, of course, she can — and probably will — continue to accumulate rewards for public speaking whenever some corporation is willing to shell out thousands of dollars and a chicken dinner to hear her expound for 45 minutes or an hour.

Television is saturated with not-very-important and not-especially-relevant commentators who routinely crop up and regale the viewer with unnecessary examinations of current conditions, people like Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Madeleine Albright and even Henry Kissinger.

Mrs. Clinton can easily join this retinue, keep her face and name before the public and eventually fade from view as all good politicians should do

She is an also-ran. She should accept the fact graciously, maybe write some more children’s books and fade into obscurity.

Chuck Witt is a retired architect and a lifelong resident of Winchester. He can be reached at chuck740@bellsouth.net.