Here's a crazy idea: Let's read the book first
A new book on Hillary Clinton causes clucking.
Never have I heard so many opinions on a book that absolutely none of the people clucking about it have read. I'm talking about "Clinton Cash," the forthcoming book (as seen in the New York Times) about the big money that rolls into the Clinton Foundation and whether that influenced Hillary Clinton's official actions while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The book was written by a well-established conservative journalist, Peter Schweizer -- opening up a whole another can of worms.
Like Obamacare, we'll have to publish the book to find out what's in it. Here's an inkling from the Times, which has paid for access to "Clinton Cash" (the book, not the actual cash):
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.
A few thoughts: 1) Although Schweizer's background is fair game -- and it's troubling that his ties to the Koch brothers and others on the right weren't fully exposed in the first publicity blast -- it's not nearly as important as what he has to say and whether it's true 2) As a journalist, if the question of ties between the foundation's foreign donors and Clinton's State Department aren't worth exploring, nothing is. 3) This should be merely the opening salvo -- established, mainstream news organizations, including the Times, should be looking into this independently. Yes, a conservative journalist is raising questions, but so is a liberal one, David Sirota. There's only one mantra for Clinton -- and for every other woman and man running for the White House.
Question everything.
Blogger's note: I'm on an editing gig tonight and pretty jammed up, so use the space below to comment not just the 2016 race but all the great issues of our time.