Donald Trump is turning the Ku Klux Klan mainstream and using contributed campaign funds to line the pockets of his own companies, but Clinton is the bad guy, not for actually doing anything wrong, but because the media sorta says she did, and that’s her fault.
That’s the message from two different Washington Post columns today, from people who should know better.
The first, by Eugene Robinson, is entitled Hillary Clinton must learn from her mistakes. Let me give you a few ‘graphs (and please — there is no hard and fast “three paragraph” rule, and this falls well within fair use*), then comment:
Much of the criticism of Hillary Clinton over her emails and her family’s foundation is unfairly harsh. But the Clintons themselves invite such scrutiny and suspicion.
and
As I have written, it seems obvious that she wanted total control of her electronic correspondence — probably to make sure that no personal emails would ever become part of the public record. Did this reflect an obsession with secrecy? Did she have something to hide?
Before drawing conclusions, remember this: It’s not paranoia if enemies really are out to get you. The Clintons have been doggedly pursued by their foes for decades. It’s understandable that they would try to avoid giving any ammunition to their adversaries.
and then this:
The other faux scandal for which Clinton is being pilloried — involving the Clinton Foundation and her State Department appointment calendar— has even less substance.
and
But now Trump and others allege a “pay to play” scheme in which big donors to the foundation got access to Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. To my eye, however, this charge is ludicrous because so many of the donors in question would surely have obtained an audience with the secretary of state anyway.
with the penultimate paragraph:
Of course, Clinton could have avoided such questions by building an impermeable wall between the foundation and the State Department. But no, the Clintons do not believe in impermeable walls. I wish they would get religion.
Okay Mr. Robinson, let me see if I’ve got this straight. Clinton was justifiably concerned about people using public emails in an abusive manner and there’s no evidence the email was ever hacked, but Clinton is wrong for the APPEARANCE of impropriety, which has been created, in its entirety, from media screaming about the appearance of impropriety. Did I get that right?
Oh, and one more thing. Robinson claims Clinton’s defense that other SecState’s did it is invalid because they didn’t set up private email servers. Hey! Eugene! Are we fucking stupid?! Sure Powell didn’t us a private email server, one that he could at least attempt to control for security, because he used AO-fucking-L. AO-fucking-”you’ve got mail” and here’s yet another fucking disc in your mailbox-L! Seriously! You left that part out — must have been an editor’s mistake.
And then the Foundation. It saved millions of lives, it didn’t actually do anything wrong, but the media has Clinton in its sights so SHE needed to do something differently, not us. How’s that? Did I get it? I notice you didn’t mention A Thousand Points of Light, which Bush I ran WHILE HE WAS IN OFFICE!
Because, Clinton rules. Not, “Hey dude, Clinton freakin’ rules!,” but “Clinton rules,” as in, they only apply to anybody named Clinton.
And then we get Richard Cohen. Yeah, I know. But here we go anyway. Clinton Foundation alchemy — turning bribes into gifts. You’ll love the hook:
Back when I worked for the claims department of a major insurance company, I got stuff. Some of the stuff consisted of tickets to Broadway shows and sporting events, and sometimes I got bottles of booze, Canadian Club being a popular choice for some reason. These items were tendered to me by auto appraisers, repair shops and other firms, large and small, that wanted the business my company could offer. Corrupt souls that they were, they offered these items as bribes. Pristine young man that I was, I accepted them as gifts. I was, in my own modest way, Hillary Clinton before her time.
Yeah, you can see where this is going. Taking graft from suckers because you have no morals is exactly the same thing as using the fact that Bill Clinton was THE MOST POPULAR MAN ON EARTH to save lives. Because it’s all about you, Richard.
Watch Cohen crap the bed with this pair of paragraphs:
“The fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as Secretary of State because of donations to the Clinton Foundation,” said Josh Schwerin, a Clinton campaign spokesman. Apparently, this is true, and it no doubt breaks the hearts of Republicans everywhere who think that Clinton is both a crook and a fool. She is possibly only a bit of the former and certainly none of the latter.
Let us take the case of Casey Wasserman. He runs the Wasserman Media Group, a sports marketing and talent-management agency. According to The Post, Wasserman’s charitable foundation contributed between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation and his investment company also hired Bill Clinton as a consultant, paying him $3.13 million in fees in 2009 and 2010. For this, aside from a warm feeling, it seems Wasserman got nothing. When he tried to get the State Department to approve a visa for a British soccer star with a criminal record, he got nowhere — so much quid, so little quo.
So let me see if I’ve go this right. A guy contributes millions of dollars to save millions of lives, asks for a favor, and doesn’t get it, so shame on Clinton? What the red-headed fuck? And here’s how he ties it all together:
But just as I knew that the gifts I got were intended as bribes, and just as only I knew that the bribes were buying nothing, so did Hillary Clinton know that the huge amounts of money raised by the Clinton Foundationwere coming from donors who thought they were buying something — access, a favor down the line, even a choice seat at some glitzy Clinton event with the requisite selfie to be sent to clients, spouses and interested others. And just as I never spelled out my rules — never said that the gift/bribe would buy nothing — I, like the Clintons, understood what might be the expectations of the donors. Some of them, probably, felt more strongly about taking a picture with Bill Clinton than about AIDS in Haiti.
Excuse me, Richard, but while you’re changing the sheets, may I point out that the people trying to bribe you, yes you, personally, you, with theater tickets and burgers were’t contributing to a charity that saves millions of lives. They had only two possible reasons to give you money, that they thought you were bored and hungry and they really liked you, or they wanted something in exchange. You weren’t saving lives. Fuck, you were probably ruining them, you and all the other douche-nozzle insurance adjusters whose job consists of saying “no” until somebody forces you to say “yes” and takes a 40% contingency. That was your real kickback, wasn’t it? How many of those gifts came from the lawyers whose pockets you were lining?
Let me put it this way, okay?
This is what your petit bribes were all about:
and this is what the Clinton Foundation was doing:
Come to think of it, you get your own quid pro quo for writing this unconscionable piece of drek. You get to stay in the club. You, and Eugene, and all the other media clowns who can’t resist attacking the Clintons for the appearances you get paid to create. Grab a manhattan and let them slap your back, buddy, you’re still in the club.
x YouTube Video*boring fair use shit for wannabe lawyers, the fair use test:
The first is the purpose and character of the use (chiefly whether it’s for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, or research, all of which favor fair use). The second is the nature of the copyrighted work itself (whether, say, it was unpublished, which is entitled to greater protection). The third is the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole (the more of the original work used, the more likely it’s an infringement). And the fourth is the effect of the use on the market for, or value of, the copyrighted work (uses that supplant the original work in the marketplace are unlikely to be fair).