In a desperate attempt to spin the escalating Clinton Foundation scandal as a positive for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, The New Yorker's John Cassidy argued in a Wednesday article that bombshell revelations about the controversy in the new book Clinton Cash "could end up benefitting Hillary."
Cassidy argued that with "conservative media figures piling on" the story, "the Clinton campaign will be able to portray questions about the Clinton Foundation and the family's finances as a political witch-hunt rather than a legitimate exercise in vetting Presidential candidates." He further declared: "And if that happens, many Americans may end up dismissing the whole thing as a partisan squabble."
Freely admitting that his analysis was purely "speculation" given that he hadn't yet read the soon-to-be-released book by Peter Schweizer, Cassidy proclaimed that "accounts from journalists who have" show that "Schweizer doesn't back up his suggestions of wrongdoing with much in the way concrete evidence, which would allow the Clintons' defenders to go on the offensive."
Cassidy dutifully recited Schweizer's Republican affiliations:
Schweizer is a former fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of several conservative policy tomes as well as books about the Bush family and the Reagan Administration. According to the biography on his Web site, he served as a speechwriting consultant to the Bush Administration from 2008 to 2009. He is now the president of the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative research organization based in Florida that, during the 2012 campaign, issued a report accusing the Obama Administration of illegally soliciting foreign donations. On the other side of the ledger, he has written two books about money and politics that criticized politicians from both parties, including Dennis Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House. One of them, published in 2011, was titled "Throw Them All Out."
But most of Schweizer's writing appears to have been directed at Democrats, and he is clearly a man of the right. In 2011, the Times reported that he was advising Sarah Palin on foreign policy.
Wrapping up piece, Cassidy issued a warning to media outlets covering the Clinton Foundation allegations:
The job of news organizations is to ferret out newsworthy stories, check their veracity, and publish them. In this instance, they were on the case well before Schweizer's book landed.
From here on out, however, things could get tricky for journalists covering the Clinton donations. Every word they write will be doubly scrutinized for evidence of political bias, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives will be on hand to dismiss as part of a G.O.P.-inspired vendetta anything that is critical of the candidate.
Cassidy concluded: "Now that Schweizer has entered the fray, with the likes of [Sean] Hannity and [Rand] Paul to ballyhoo what appear to be largely unsubstantiated allegations, partisan politics is likely to color the views of the broader public. If and when Hillary Clinton falls back on the old argument that it’s all a right-wing conspiracy against her and her family, many people might well be prepared to take her at her word."
On Tuesday, CBS This Morning similarly advanced the theory that the scandal could help the Clinton campaign and "unify Democrats around her."
