Stephanopoulos

George Stephanopoulos, a Microcosm of the Bigger Clinton Scandal

The View from the Middle

If you haven’t read the book Clinton Cash, you should.  Oh what a tangled web they have woven.  It is revealing as well as entertaining, in a sad, sort of sick way.  But you can get the short version, a microcosm if you will, of the Clinton Cash for influence scheme by following the much easier to understand “George Stephanopoulos” saga.    

George was the White House Communications Director for Bill Clinton back in 1992 before becoming Bill’s Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy in 1996.  Now he is chief anchor for ABC News and co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America.  No potential conflict there, right?

Last week, Stephanopoulos interviewed the author of Clinton Cash, Peter Schweizer, for ABC News.  It was seen immediately as an inappropriate cross-examination instead of an unbiased interview.  Within a few days, George revealed that he had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation over a three-year period, and OOPS, had forgotten to report that to ABC or the world in general.  OK, now I see the conflict of interest.

For sure, he had donated the money because the Foundation does such a good job of making the world a better place.  The Clinton Foundation says that it fights Aids/HIV, childhood obesity, climate change and advocates women’s rights, although it is not named as a top charity for any of these causes. 

In fact, sources suggest that the Foundation gives only 15% of its assets to their causes with the rest of the 85% of its money going to travel, salaries and “other” expenses.  Charity Navigator won’t even give them a rating because (and I’m simplifying here) they don’t understand what the heck the Clinton’s are doing.

Yet despite all of this evidence, George Stephanopoulos couldn’t find a more suitable recipient for his $75,000 to fight Aids, or whatever, than the Clinton Foundation?  I guess the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center just wasn’t good enough, or the Hewlett Foundation for climate change didn’t quite cut it.

Or could it be that neither of these foundations could also guarantee access to the Clintons for this ABC newsman.  Of course, George will deny that his donations had anything to do with access to the Clintons.  He will say that there are no videos showing he and Hillary shaking hands and with him saying, “OK, for this $75,000 I will get unfettered access to you and Bill for the next three years”.  He’ll say there is no e-mail that lays out a contract between the Clintons and him for future favors.

So, I guess we just have to take his word for all this.  NO!  We can actually use our own brains and decide for ourselves whether this kind of activity is appropriate.  Do we really want this kind of interaction between our politicians and the media?  Do we want this kind of give and take between our politicians and foreign governments? 

By the way, we do have recourse in all of these shenanigans.  We can choose not to watch George or even ABC altogether if we think we are getting a partisan skew to his reporting.  And, of course, we always have freedom of choice when it come to who you vote for.  Remember, when you are in that voting booth and you consider pulling the Hillary lever, you are in effect voting for this kind of behavior.  Is that what we really want in Washington?  Think it over.