By Rick Manning
If Hillary has a massive Clinton Foundation problem, then the media must find some problem with the Trump Foundation.
That’s the equivalency game that continually gets played by the left, and quite frankly I’m sick of it.
When emails reveal that Hillary is literally selling appointments to donors to the Clinton Foundation, right on cue, her sycophants in the media pick up her contention that Donald Trump’s business deals will somehow conflict him in foreign policy.
Here is what the little read, but somehow still published Newsweek had to say, “If Donald Trump is elected president, will he and his family permanently sever all connections to the Trump Organization, a sprawling business empire that has spread a secretive financial web across the world? Or will Trump instead choose to be the most conflicted president in American history, one whose business interests will constantly jeopardize the security of the United States?”
Really?
The Clinton Foundation takes millions upon millions of dollars in gifts that smell like bribes from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State and Newsweek is concerned that Donald Trump has business interests all over the world that may impair his judgment?
What a farce. In fact, those business contacts all over the world would seem to be an asset in terms of getting different perspectives on the real, on the ground, situations to supplement the normal foreign policy channels at the disposal of a U.S. President.
But the Clinton campaign desperately needs to offset her corruption and malfeasance by creating an equivalency in Trump, and so they attempt to take an asset and worry that it might be “conflicting.” The sycophantic media then parrots the concern as if it is real, and wham, bam, the public is being told that Trump has a Foundation problem, with no mention of Hillary’s abject corruption.
NBC Nightly News, hosted by Lester Holt who will be the not very impartial moderator of the first debate between Clinton and Trump, weighed in on another fantasy Trump Foundation problem “reporting” on a recent New York Attorney General investigation into whether portraits of Trump were appropriately purchased or not.
Somehow, having the Foundation paying for a portrait or to purchase an autographed football helmet (both of which are legal under the IRS code) and the attention seeking Democrat New York Attorney General will open an “investigation” with Lester Holt dutifully reporting it. Take tens of millions of dollars from countries that jail or execute gay people into your Foundation, nothing to see here. In fact, according to Media Research Center, Holt’s reporting on the Clinton Foundation seems to be limited to breathlessly breaking news that Bill Clinton won’t be on the Board of the group should Hillary become President. All ethical problems solved. Yay.
But equivalency has been achieved, Trump Foundation pays for portraits equals Hillary selling access to her office through her Foundation. While rational people would recognize that the Trump “problem” is the equivalent of a pimple, and Hillary’s is melanoma, in the world of the left’s coverage they are both skin conditions cancelling each other out.
And of course, Hillary’s pay for play connections around the world are what qualifies her for President, but Trump’s business relationships are potentially conflicting to his being able to make foreign policy.
If there were an honest press corps, this would be shocking, but given that we are well beyond that fantasy, it is just important to know. If the media reports on a scandal or Hillary attacks on one, rest assured there is a much larger problem in her campaign which is either being offset or minimized.
Just a little helper in interpreting the opaque world of political reporting.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.