The selling of "Hillary fraud"
by Tom Sullivan
With Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, you knew the "Clinton Rumors" would be back with a vengeance. Along with the chain emails from your dad. David Mikkelson has been collecting them at Snopes.com since the 1990s:
As he did in 2007, Mikkelson has seen a recent uptick in interest in Clinton rumors. The popular one recently was that Clinton was fired from the Watergate investigation. "It's everything that people want to believe of her," Mikkelson said -- "she's a liar, she's corrupt, she's unethical -- all in one piece." It is also important to note: This rumor is false.
Somebody once said they'll keep doing this stuff as long as they think it works.
A few days ago we had a media blitz over Clinton Cash written by Peter Schweizer, a former Bush speechwriter and Breitbart.com contributor. The pattern is familiar:
Schweizer explains he cannot prove the allegations, leaving that up to investigative journalists and possibly law enforcement. “Short of someone involved coming forward to give sworn testimony, we don’t know what might or might not have been said in private conversations, the exact nature of the transition, or why people in power make the decision they do,” he writes. Later, he concludes, “We cannot ultimately know what goes on in their minds and ultimately provide the links between the money they took and the benefits that subsequently accrued to themselves, their friends, and their associates.”
So then, nothing. Yet again.
This morning at the New York Times we have "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians Pressed for Control of Uranium Company" about Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra. You remember the Times. From the run-up to the Iraq invasion? Or maybe Judith Miller?
Bullshit sells. America buys. ("Oh, McFly, your shoe's untied.")
Just yesterday, Michael Tomasky blasted:
While I’m at it with the irony quotes, I might as well drape some around that adjective “investigative” too. The Times, it seems, has decided to debase itself by following the breadcrumbs dropped by this former adviser to Sarah Palin because Schweizer devotes a chapter to Giustra and Kazakhstan, which the Times reported on back in 2008, and the Times plans to follow up on that.
I remember reading that Times story at the time and going, “Wow, that does look bad.” But then I also remember reading this Forbes (yes, Forbes!) debunking of the Times story, which was headlined “Clinton Commits No Foul in Kazakhstan Uranium Deal.” By the time I finished reading that piece (and please, click through and read it so that you are forearmed for the coming Times hit job), I was marveling to myself: Golly, that Times piece looked so awful at the time. But it turns out they just left out some facts, obscured some others, and without being technically inaccurate, managed to convey or imply that something skuzzy happened where it in fact hadn’t. How can a great newspaper do such a thing?
How indeed? But throw enough smoke bombs into newsrooms and people will believe there must be a fire. Maybe, might be, and possibly are the stock-in-trade of rumor mongering. It works. Look how well it has worked for Hans von Spakovsky & Co. in convincing the people of River City that they've got trouble with a a capital "V" that stands for voter fraud, and that he's just the guy to sell them a boys' band photo ID laws to fix it.
By the way, it was former president Bill Clinton who explained how this stuff works to The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart in August 2004:
STEWART: Is it – has it gotten to the point – do you believe that politics has gotten so dirty and so – that these kinds of tactics have become so prevalent – that this is the reason half the country doesn’t vote, or, this is the reason we don’t get, maybe, the officials that we deserve?
CLINTON: No, I think people do it because they think it works.
STEWART: That’s it. Simply a strategy?
CLINTON: Absolutely. And as soon as it doesn’t work, they’ll stop doing it. So I think Senator McCain, whom I admire very much, made a mistake not bashing the Bush campaign over the attacks on his service. They implied he betrayed the country when he was a POW and he made a huge mistake in not bashing them for that calling operation saying he’d adopted a black baby. It was blatantly racist. They’ll do this stuff as long as they think it works.
Judging by the headlines, it's still working. "Oh, McFly, your shoe's untied."