Remember when the Clinton Foundation was the media's obsession, because some people who gave it money asked for meetings with then-Seceretary of State Hillary Clinton? It was such a potential scandal that it necessitated breathless daily updates, indeed often many times daily. And some were demanding that the Foundation be shuttered, should Clinton be elected president. And never mind the millions of lives the Foundation saved.
Except that it turned out not to be a scandal at all. And no one managed to explain what the quids or quos were supposed to be. And some of the donors who requested meetings with Clinton received them and some didn't. And those who did were people such as Nobel Peace Prize winners, and heads of other leading international humanitarian foundations— exactly the type of people who normally get meetings with Secretaries of State. And, of course, plenty of people who were not donors also got meetings with Clinton. It was almost as if the donations had nothing at all to do with who did or didn't get meetings. In fact, it was exactly as if the donations had nothing at all to do with who did or didn't get meetings.
And as the facts became clear, the media devolved to discussions of "optics," and we once again saw what digby calls "Cokie's Law":
I can't help but be reminded of something I like to call Cokie's Law, after Steve Roberts wife. It comes from the Village maxim, "It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's out there," which was based upon this quote from Cokie Roberts back in 1999:
"At this point," said Roberts, "it doesn't much matter whether she said it or not because it's become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about."It was all very important and a very big deal, and the daily drumbeat drove down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, even as they didn't improve Donald Trump's. Just another month of deplorable Clinton media coverage. Remember? It was such a long time ago. It was so August.
But now there are very real questions about Donald Trump, and not only about his Foundation, which the Washington Post editorial board, which has shone like a beacon in this bleak night of media dystopia, described thusly:
THE TRUMP campaign believes this editorial is not journalism. It is “badgering.” That is how campaign manager Kellyanne Conway described on Tuesday some simple questions The Post and others have asked Mr. Trump and his circle over the past several months about his supposed philanthropic activities. If anyone has an authenticity problem, it is Mr. Trump. The facts on the table suggest he is not a great philanthropist — he is a scam artist.
Concluding:
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) announced Tuesday that he is investigating the Trump Foundation. There is a movement to persuade the Justice Department to do so as well. Yet the potential violations of the law seem to be less significant than what Mr. Trump appears to have done legally: duped people into believing in another one of his self-aggrandizing shams.
But an even bigger story was revealed this week by Newsweek's Kurt Eichenwald:
A close examination by Newsweek of the Trump Organization, including confidential interviews with business executives and some of its international partners, reveals an enterprise with deep ties to global financiers, foreign politicians and even criminals, although there is no evidence the Trump Organization has engaged in any illegal activities. It also reveals a web of contractual entanglements that could not be just canceled. If Trump moves into the White House and his family continues to receive any benefit from the company, during or even after his presidency, almost every foreign policy decision he makes will raise serious conflicts of interest and ethical quagmires.
That would seem to be a much bigger deal than mere requests for meetings that did or didn't happen, that didn't have any demonstrable quids or quoes, and that amounted to such nothing that the once obsessed media have now all but forgotten it.
Trump’s business conflicts with America’s national security interests cannot be resolved so long as he or any member of his family maintains a financial interest in the Trump Organization during a Trump administration, or even if they leave open the possibility of returning to the company later. The Trump Organization cannot be placed into a blind trust, an arrangement used by many politicians to prevent them from knowing their financial interests; the Trump family is already aware of who their overseas partners are and could easily learn about any new ones.
In fact, the words "national security" appear seven times in the text of the article, which would seem to be something about which the wider media might take notice. There are even details about Trump's business dealings with Turkey, which might create a direct personal financial conflict between Trump and the war against ISIS. And yet, from the wider media: crickets. As with all the revelations in Eichenwald's article.
xNews that Trump hung out with Qaddafi. (crickets.) Trump hands s talk show host two pieces of paper no one gets to see. (BREAKING NEWS!!!!)
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 15, 2016Given the disparity between the media's obsessive coverage of the non-scandal about the Clinton Foundation, which makes the Clintons no money and saves millions of lives, and the Trump Organization's business ties, which benefit no one but the Trumps and could endanger national security, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn. And it is one of the most disturbing conclusions ever to be drawn about the American media, in the now tenuous history of the American republic.