By now you may have noticed that Clinton Derangement Syndrome is in full flower. From Carly Fiorina's slightly manic rants about her to the desperate search for anything at all that might have a whiff of a "scandal," the knives are out.
But Jackie Kucinich's latest article at The Daily Beast is the closest thing I've seen to all-out derangement yet.
We begin with the headline: "Corrupt FIFA Has Clinton Foundation Ties; World Cup Host Qatar Gave Millions." Well, then. If one thing is corrupt and gives money to another, the other must be corrupt too? Or else the headline writers there are just link-baity whores. You make the call.
Kucinich is convinced that Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation are intertwined in the FIFA scandal. Her evidence is as follows:
The Clinton global charity has received between $50,000 and $100,000 from soccer’s governing body and has partnered with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association on several occasions, according to donor listings on the foundation’s website.
Well hell's bells! I guess that means Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, and other conservatives are in on the corruption too, since they also donated to the Clinton Foundation?
WTF, Jackie? But wait, maybe there's more.
Involvement with the embattled body extends beyond the foundation to Bill Clinton himself. The former president was an honorary chairman of the bid committee put together to promote the United States as a possible host nation for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.
And the United States lost, likely due to corrupt practices on the part of FIFA's management. So this makes Clinton and the foundation corrupt how?
Let's see what Jackie has to say.
But apparently Qatar tried to make it up to him.
The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, partnering with the State of Qatar, “committed to utilizing its research and development for sustainable infrastructure at the 2022 FIFA World Cup to improve food security in Qatar, the Middle East, and other arid and water-stressed regions throughout the world,” according to the Clinton Foundation website.
The cost of the two-year project is not listed on the Clinton Foundation website, but the Qatar 2022 committee gave the foundation between $250,000 and $500,000 in 2014 and the State of Qatar gave between $1 million and $5 million in previous, unspecified years.
So Qatar gave between $1 and $5 million in years before 2014, then granted between $250K-$500K for water and food security in arid regions in 2014, and this is somehow a quid pro quo?
Boy, that's a stretch right there. Particularly the part where she insinuates that they tried to wipe Bill Clinton's tears away with donations to the foundation.
She presents no evidence of any kind of corruption. To be fair, if you read the headline carefully, the suggestion is there but not the statement. One might be excused for making the leap, though, given the tone and focus of the article.
Now tell me again why it is that Hillary Clinton should accommodate reporters' questions? So she can be misquoted and send them on wild witchhunts for more non-scandals they can pretend are scandalous?
I don't care who you are and who you support. Allowing this kind of press hackery to stand without any kind of pushback will end badly for all of us. As for Jackie Kucinich and The Daily Beast, they're irrelevant after this.
Jackie, take your place over there next to crazy Larry Klayman. The two of you have the same derangement level and about the same amount of credibility.