If you've never heard of Peter Schweizer, you're about to. And you're not already convinced that Bill Clinton's Wife used her position as Secretary of State to secure cash donations for herself and Bill Clinton's Wife's Husband, you may soon be left with little doubt.
Schweizer, a Hoover Institution scholar and former George W. Bush speechwriter, has written a book that apparently lays out the money trail unmistakably - showing how foreign governments benefits with special favors in return for their cash donations to the Clinton Foundation. It's pretty brazen, all right, but why should that surprise anyone whose followed the behavior of the Clintons in their 23 years in the American political spotlight. This is how they always operate. Their whole purpose in seeking high positions of power in government is to benefit themselves. You didn't really think Hillary would pass up that chance as Secretary of State, when she was in a position to trade so many favors for foreign cash, did you?
Even the New York Times seems resigned to the fact that she did, and that it's absurd to try to pretend otherwise:
The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.
“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.
His examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Mr. Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department.
In the long lead up to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign announcement, aides proved adept in swatting down critical books as conservative propaganda, including Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud,” about tensions between the Clintons and the Obamas, and Daniel Halper’s “Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.”
But “Clinton Cash” is potentially more unsettling, both because of its focused reporting and because major news organizations including The Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book.
That last element is the key to whether this book makes the impact it should. Of course Fox News is going to cover it, but if the Washington Post and the New York Times take it seriously, that's going to establish the lead you will probably see followed by other major newspapers and cable news operations.
The Clinton campaign, of course, is already attacking Schweizer as a partisan whose "bias" against Hillary should mean (or they hope it will mean) that no one should take the book seriously. But the real test of any investigative report is not who wrote it but how solid the information is. If what Schweizer says is true and can be shown to be true, then it wouldn't matter if the author of the book was Scott Walker or Ted Cruz. Only that the facts are the facts.
Rob has a theory that the media would really like to take Hillary out in time for someone else to win the primary, either because she just irritates the bejeezus out of them or because they're afraid she can't win the general election. I had a hard time buying it at first because no one follows the conventional thinking like the MSM. But now I'm starting to wonder. No one - whether in the Democratic Party or in the liberal media - really seems enthusiastic about a Hillary candidacy. There are those who are resigned to it because they feel like they have no choice, and there are those who are making little secret of their discomfort with the whole ill-begotten idea.
Maybe forces in the Democratic Party have made it known to their media cheerleaders that they won't be too terribly heartbroken if Bill Clinton's Wife is taken out, in which case the Times and the Post are just doing what they normally do - following the lead of the Democrats' power brokers.
If I were Bill Clinton's Wife - well, I'd be contacting a lawyer - but she ought to be worried about the fact that her usual media protectors are not acting to form on this issue, at least at the moment. There is no doubt that there's enough sleaze surrounding the Clintons to take down her candidacy. The only question is whether the media decides to cover it. If they do, she's finished. The presumption up until now was that they would be good doobies and bury it. Now I'm not so sure.
