The tension mounts as we approach the official September 12 publication date of Madam Hillary’s forthcoming campaign memoir, What Happened ? . Clinton released what is billed as an exclusive excerpt or two to her friends at MSNBC, where commentators’ eyes were moist with tears of rage on election night.

Reading the excerpts, Clinton reveals that she was unnerved by Trump’s proximity to her during their October 9 debate at Washington University. “He was literally breathing down my neck,” she relates. I think she means “literally” as in “figuratively”

“My skin crawled,” she adds. It was “literally” that bad.

Reviewing the video, I think Trump actually appears to have approached within four feet of her majesty. You can see how this might have disturbed the composure she touted to face the prospective Commander in Chief’s hypothetical 3:00 a.m. phone call when she campaigned against Barack Obama in 2008. As it is, Trump adds to the ordeal she has endured in “a lifetime of difficult men trying to throw [her] off.”

To whom might she be referring? She wouldn’t be anywhere close to where she was without one such difficult man.

Students of ancient history may want to compare Clinton’s nightmare moment with George W. Bush’s close encounter of the fifth kind with Al Gore (also in St. Louis) in the 2000 campaign.