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Don’t pass blame on campaign statements

2 min read

Her infamous "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business" moment is the comment she regrets most from her failed campaign for president, Hillary Clinton writes in her new book, "What Happened."

But as usual with Clinton, she refuses to admit it was her mistake.

She and many of her defenders insist Clinton's comment lost her votes in coal country because it was taken out of context. Most who quoted her did not mention she made the statement in discussing her plan to help those who had relied for generations on mining jobs.

"Stripped of context, my words sounded heartless," Clinton writes in her book.

Well, yes. But the context apologists miss the point.

Had Clinton proposed government help for miners whose job loss was unavoidable, her statement might not have stung. But recall, she said "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business ..."

Here in Ohio, along with other coal regions in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, voters understood that had Clinton been elected president, she would have intensified former President Barack Obama's war on coal and affordable electricity.

For eight years, it seemed as if then-President Barack Obama had unleashed every weapon in the bureaucracy's arsenal against the coal mining industry. Then, Obama invented some new tools to harass coal country.

Clinton has only herself to blame for losing coal country votes by slipping up and revealing her job-killing agenda.

Starting at /week.