Hillary Gives Speech Empowering Women, Ignores Her Own Advice

This week, Hillary Clinton surprised a lot of women at the MAKERS conference in California by appearing in a short video about empowering women to stand up and speak their minds. And it made the establishment media giddy.

All over TV and online, news outlets were lavishing praise on her. Hollywood Life, for instance, was "speechless."

There's no question that it was a beautiful speech: shorter, yet powerfully spoken and optimistic. It is what all of us (well, almost all of us) want of the women in our lives. Check out this poignant passage:

Just look at the amazing energy we saw last month, as women organized a march that galvanized millions of people all over our country and across the world. Now more than ever, we have to stay focused on the theme of this year's conference: be bold.

Be bold.

It's a great -- and extremely important -- message.

The hundreds of thousands of women who came together and organized last week's protests are perfect examples of "being bold." They showed us the power of standing up -- even in the face of adversity -- and they were able to get the Trump administration running scared.

Still, discussing the women's march and telling people to "be bold" is a bit strange, given that Clinton didn't bother showing up at the march.

And she never went out and said anything in support of the issues (though she did tweet a few times).

Clinton continued:

We need strong women to step up and speak out ...we need you to dare greatly and lead boldly, to set an example for every woman and girl out there who's worried about what the future holds and wonders whether our rights opportunities and values will endure. And remember, you are the heroes and history makers, the glass ceiling breakers of the future.

Countless courageous women are doing exactly that: stepping up and speaking out.

Just look at Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, who for more than a generation has fought for the rights of oppressed people.

There's nothing she hasn't done to fight for what's right -- from being arrested countless times, to traveling to some of the most dangerous places on earth for drone victims.

Madea Benjamin is exactly the kind of person that Clinton was describing. But who did Benjamin think stepped up and spoke out? Not Hillary Clinton.

In fact, Benjamin has written several articles about how Clinton and her policies have been extremely hurtful to millions of people around the world. No, Benjamin endorsed Bernie Sanders and later Jill Stein.

Now, as Trump tears apart the Constitutional fabric of this country, it clearly is the time to step up and speak out.

Jill Stein has: she was arrested protesting the Dakota access pipeline alongside Native American tribes. And so has Bernie Sanders, who has been seen at countless rallies across the country.

But what's Clinton doing to "step up and speak out?" She's writing a book -- about herself.

Oh yeah, and those speaking engagements...those are back on. Clinton has once again signed on with the Harry Walker Agency, the company that rented her out to companies for those $200,000 speeches.

So although Clinton deserves some applause for her speech, we may want to tone down the hero worship a bit.