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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / The Old Bait and Switch

The Old Bait and Switch

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And the NYTimes and every other media outlet got completely played:

Journalists have suggested that conservative author Peter Schweizer’s forthcoming book attacking Hillary Clinton is more credible because he will follow it up with a similar book examining Jeb Bush. But according to his publisher, no such book is in the works: Schweizer’s reporting on Bush will be published on the website of his non-profit organization.

Over the past few days numerous media outlets have begun reporting on allegations Schweizer makes in his forthcoming book Clinton Cash about allegedly unethical ties between the Clinton Foundation and actions Hillary Clinton purportedly made as secretary of state. Critics — including Media Matters — have noted that Schweizer is a Republican activist and strategist with a history of reporting errors.

Pushing back against this narrative, Bloomberg Politics reported on April 23 that in contrast to the “left-wing clamor that Schweizer is simply out to get Hillary Clinton,” “Schweizer is working on a similar investigation of Jeb Bush’s finances that he expects to publish this summer.”

Picking up the story, Politico reported that Schweizer “is reportedly working on another book that he expects to release in the summer. Only this time, he’ll be writing about Jeb Bush.” CNN likewise reported that the “book on Bush… would be published this summer.”

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

(via C&L)

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  4. 4.

    MattF

    And here I was, expecting the revelation that Jeb! is a wonderful, kind, decent, brilliant, humble, genetically superior person who deserves to be President. Does this mean he’s not, actually?

  5. 5.

    Baud

    NYTimes and every other media outlet got completely played:

    Technically, Fox didn’t get played.

  9. 9.

    Linda

    Seriously, the old saying is that you can’t cheat an honest man. This is a case in which the media got played because they willed themselves to believe something that a day old baby could have seen for a lie.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    OT: A nice headline from Newsmax, which is back on the mobile site.

    House GOP Rebels Blame Party Leaders for Contribution Decline

  13. 13.

    Bobby B

    The NYT and media’s parent companies continue to financially profit from all this. Who got played again?

  15. 15.

    gbear

    “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

    He didn’t realize till he was half way into that line that finishing it would have him on record saying ‘Shame on me!’ and he stumbled all over himself to not say it. He knew that that video would (rightfully) NEVER disappear. Moron.

  16. 16.

    patrick II

    Bill Clinton took money from rich contributors for making speeches while raising money for his foundation’s charities that supported solutions for:

    Abuse, Adoption, Fostering, Orphans, AIDS & HIV, Animals, At-Risk/Disadvantaged Youths, Cancer, Children, Conservation, Creative Arts, Disaster Relief, Economic/Business Support, Education, Environment, Family/Parent Support, Health, Homelessness, Human Rights, Hunger, Literacy, Mental Challenges, Miscellaneous, Oceans, Peace, Physical Challenges, Poverty, Rape/Sexual Abuse, Sports, Unemployment/Career Support, Veteran/Service Member Support, Water, Women

    Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, et al will take billions from billionaire contributors for which they in turn want to make and enforce laws that support:

    Misogeny, Guns for everyone (including assault rifles for crazy people), Taking from the poor and giving to the rich, Business monopolies, evasion of taxes with overseas accounts, War (of all kinds), Racism, Monetizing (and depleting) education, Privatizing water supplies and public assets of all kinds, and Climate change denial

    Yet somehow accepting money for Clinton’s foundation is a scandal but accepting billions that corrupt every effort for government and public decency is not.

  17. 17.

    Howard Beale IV

    Our conventional media is so far in the tank for access vs truth it’s surprising that we’ve managed to keep the facade of being a representative democracy alive for as long as we have.

    Now that the Supreme Court has on its docket the nonsense about the drugs used for lethal injection, maybe the guillotine/beheading isn’t such a bad ideal after all.

  20. 20.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    He didn’t realize till he was half way into that line that finishing it would have him on record saying ‘Shame on me!’ and he stumbled all over himself to not say it.

    Oh, I think the entire rest of the world had figured out by that point that Dubya had no shame.

  21. 21.

    Cervantes

    @WaterGirl:

    hahahahaha

    Which reminds me:

    On the heels of Rep. Steve King’s outrageous announcement Wednesday of his “Restrain the Judges on Marriage Act,” Rep. Jared Polis (CO-02) today proposed the “Restrain Steve King from Legislating Act.” The bill would prevent Steve King from abusing taxpayer dollars by substituting the judgments of the nation’s duly serving judicial branch of government with his own beliefs.

    “For too long, Steve King has overstepped his constitutionally nonexistent judicial authority,” Polis said. “Mr. King has perverted the Constitution to create rights to things such as discrimination, bullying, and disparate treatment. […]

    “I urge the House to bring this bill to the floor. If passed, my bill would preserve the right of millions of voters in all 50 states who would prefer that Steve King refrain from legislating a role for himself in their marriage decisions.”

    That’s from the Congressman’s web-site.

  23. 23.

    Cacti

    My favorite part of the breathless NYT story was that they buried this in paragraph 10:

    Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown.

    Then in their editorial demanding answers, this was a bit closer to the top:

    Nothing illegal has been alleged about the foundation, the global philanthropic initiative founded by former President Bill Clinton.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If the free market actually worked, the editorial staff of the NYT would be asking people, right this second, if they want fries with that burger.

    Incompetent and gullible beyond belief. Don’t have the sense that the universe granted to a fucking amoeba.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    So let’s see now. The Clinton Foundation is supposedly raising money from bad people and doing all kinds of mysterious unspecified wrong. Meanwhile the GOP and the Tea Party want to eviscerate the IRS for supposedly investigating conservative exempt organizations for using money from various sources for political and financial purposes.

    This is the long con.

    And remember. The Clinton’s are bad people, while conservatives are patriots. You can read all about it in the NYT.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    @efgoldman: I wonder who the editor of the Times is these days. I don’t keep up anymore. I don’t know if anyone at the Times really reads the comments or whether the Public Editor has any strong mandate to be able to rub the editor’s nose in it when they’ve really made a mess.

  33. 33.

    Tenar Darell

    @efgoldman: Are you kidding me? They fired her, she actually made them fire her. She refused to leave gracefully, or sign a thing. I knew it was bad with the book, but that’s really bad. Wow, NYTimes can’t even do recent history on themselves without lying.

  35. 35.

    Tree With Water

    It might even be worse than the Times being played. The shot-callers at the paper may have known all along- in fact, they probably did, if their recent track record is any indication..

  36. 36.

    LT

    Got played? That’s just nuts. They reported on the Clinton Foundation, and shady aspects of donations and people connected. It is 100% solid reporting on legitimate issues.

    Play this: Jeb Bus is found to have been involved in deals as governor connected to his former-president close relative (brother or father, rather than spouose), and Kazakh and Russian uranium and oil brokers, that led to Russians owning 51% of US uranium interests. (This ignores Bill Clinton’s lie about the meeting, and the faliure todisclose several donations related to all this.)

    I’m supposed to belive Dems would yawn? And say “NYT got played!” if they reported on it?

    Dems have lost their minds.

  37. 37.

    Brachiator

    @Cervantes: A repressed memory. I forgot that the only good thing that Baquet did at the LA Times was to get fired for protesting newsroom cuts. Apart from that, he was just another co conspirator in the death of a once good newspaper.

  38. 38.

    LT

    Got played? That’s just nuts. They reported on the Clinton Foundation, and shady aspects of donations and people connected. It is 100% solid reporting on legitimate issues.

    Play this: Jeb Bus is found to have been involved in deals as governor connected to many millions of dollars in donations made to the foundation of his former-president close relative (brother or father, rather than spouse), and Kazakh and Russian uranium and oil brokers, that led to Russians owning 51% of US uranium interests. (This ignores Bill Clinton’s lie about the meeting, and the faliure todisclose several donations related to all this.)

    I’m supposed to belive Dems would yawn? And say “NYT got played!” if they reported on it?

    Dems have lost their minds.

    [this is an edit of previous comment, which gave me error msg when thrying to edit]

  39. 39.

    LT

    @Cacti: You have lost your fucking mind.

    Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown.

    I’ve seen ppl using that as proof of something. Honestly – Dems have become the lowest koind of mouthbreathers since Obama became president. There is no such thing as a core Dem anymore.

    NOTE TO WORLD: REPORTERS REPORT ON ALLEGATIONS *ALL THE FUCKING TIME. THAT’S ABOUT 90% OF WHAT REPORTING IS. YOU DUMB FUCKING BARK BITING FUCKS. JESUS.*

  42. 42.

    LT

    @Cacti:

    This is the very first story – concerning shady dealings by shady people and donations and huge business transactions – that led to the eventual arrest and imprisonment of Duke Cunningham:

    http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/politics/20050612-9999-1n12windfall.html

    The story does not purport to prove anything illegal happened. The story reports on deals related to an elected official that looked suspect – because appearance of impropriety actually matters:

    “This doesn’t look good at all,” said Larry Noble, director of the Center for Responsive Politics. “It doesn’t look like something that was on the up and up.”

    “The potential conflicts here are enormous,” added Brad White, director of investigations for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.

    I love Cunnigham’s response:

    “I don’t have anything to do with contracts,” Cunningham said.

    Sound familiar?

    The story led to more reporting, then to an FBI investigation. THAT is good reporting. Just like the NYT Clinton story is good reporting – that will almost certainly lead to more. (Especially on Bill’s lie.)

  44. 44.

    LT

    Amy Davidson is very VERY good on this:

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/five-questions-about-the-clintons-and-a-uranium-company

    I love #3:

    3. Did the Clintons personally profit? In most stories about dubious foundation donors, the retort from Clinton supporters is that the only beneficiaries have been the world’s poorest people. This ignores the way vanity and influence are their own currencies—but it is an argument, and the foundation does some truly great work. In this case, though, Bill Clinton also accepted a five-hundred-thousand-dollar speaking fee for an event in Moscow, paid for by a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin. That was in June, 2010, the Times reports, “the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One”—a deal that the Russian bank was promoting and thus could profit from. Did Bill Clinton do anything to help after taking their money? The Times doesn’t know. But there is a bigger question: Why was Bill Clinton taking any money from a bank linked to the Kremlin while his wife was Secretary of State? In a separate story, breaking down some of the hundred million dollars in speaking fees that Bill Clinton has collected, the Washington Post notes, “The multiple avenues through which the Clintons and their causes have accepted financial support have provided a variety of ways for wealthy interests in the United States and abroad to build friendly relations with a potential future president.”

    I’m sure Dems would shrug at such things if it were Jeb or Rubio. Yerp.

    Bonus: I wonder if the anti-Snowden-ers are okay with this Clinton Kremlin stuff.

  45. 45.

    different-church-lady

    @LT: Bill is willing to come home if he’s guaranteed a fair trial in the media.

  49. 49.

    Cervantes

    @different-church-lady:

    Remember these?

    I’m principled.
    You’re annoyingly adamant.
    He’s a long standing purity troll and all around moron.

    (Not the best example of the form, no doubt, but you get the point. Plus I bet the “all around moron” knows how to punctuate.)

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Cervantes:

    You seem to think we’re being unfair to LT. I’m letting you know what the substance of his arguments generally is. If you would like to engage him, be my guest, but those of us who have encountered him before know that there’s not much there there.

  56. 56.

    mclaren

    What an amazing surprise.

    Coming up next: Jeb’s astounding new tax cut plan for the middle class…that turns out not to actually cut taxes for the middle class, but only for the rich.

    Haven’t we been here before?

  60. 60.

    LT

    @Cervantes: Let’s just note for the record that some of the substance I’ve brought to this – that Substance Hound Syne has not responded to – regards the complete nonsense that this:

    Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown.

    is evidence of bad news reporting. It’s just fucking stoneheaded stupidity. News reporters report on allegations – all the fucking time.

    And the questons raised by Amy Davidson:

    In this case, though, Bill Clinton also accepted a five-hundred-thousand-dollar speaking fee for an event in Moscow, paid for by a Russian investment bank that had ties to the Kremlin. That was in June, 2010, the Times reports, “the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One”—a deal that the Russian bank was promoting and thus could profit from.

    Will Syne respond to these? Meh. Don’t much care, but just wanted to note it.

    Plus: Can’t remember if Syne is a member of the “SNOWDEN DA KREMLIN STOOGE!!!” brigade, but it would not surprise me.

  61. 61.

    weaselone

    I think the stupidest thing about this controversy is that all the articles seem to brush off the fact that multiple departments have to sign off on this type of deal. If the fact is even brought up, it’s aggravatingly treated as it were somehow immaterial. If all the other departments signed off on these deals, including the DoD it’s asinine to assume that there is something nefarious in the State Department making the same determination as all the other departments.

  62. 62.

    J R in WV

    @patrick II:

    What a fine job of putting these political associations into a real-world perspective.

    The Clinton Foundation is working to improve the lot of everyone who needs a hand up, while all the others are soliciting contributions to support work to kick people who need a hand up in the face, dropping them into the fire of extreme poverty, with no hope of ever climbing out of the pit of dispair.

  63. 63.

    lee

    @Linda:

    seriously Linda I wish I had as positive an attitude to life and was able to try and see the best in people like you appear to have. Im afraid I don’t though and to me it just looks like The Times and the others were just using the ‘forthcoming Job book’ lie as a way to cover themselves

  64. 64.

    LT

    @J R in WV:

    The Clinton Foundation is working to improve the lot of everyone who needs a hand up, while all the others are soliciting contributions to support work to kick people who need a hand up in the face, dropping them into the fire of extreme poverty, with no hope of ever climbing out of the pit of dispair.

    That’s a very weak argument. Plenty of organizations like like the CF have done good things – and bad things, too. Kinda human nature.

  65. 65.

    Bill Arnold

    @LT:
    Russia had been supplying the US with uranium for a while, ending 2013 when the last of 500 tons of surplus weapons grade uranium was used to, diluted to make reactor fuel.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program

    United States and Russia agreed to commercially implement a 20-year program to convert 500 metric tons of HEU (uranium 235 enriched to 90 percent) taken from Soviet era warheads, into LEU, low enriched uranium (less than 5 percent uranium 235).

    Did the Times article mention that? I haven’t read it yet.

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