USADaily -
New York Times Magazine’s Mark Leibovich was on Face the Nation today, talking about the Clinton Foundation and the controversy over the error-riddled Associated Press story that I reported on a few days ago.
At one point during the show, Leibovich asked, blithely, why Bill and Hillary Clinton don’t simply shut their foundation down and let the Gates Foundation take over its responsibilities?
After all, Leibovich notes, it would make things so much easier for the Clintons. So why not simply do it?
Leibovich answers his own question: Clearly the Clintons are refusing to shut down their Foundation because of a sense of “entitlement” and “false confidence.”
Or maybe the Clinton Foundation provides 11.8 million people with AIDS with lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs — including 800,000 children — have brought the price of malaria drugs down 90% for 12 million people, and has prevented 50,000 child deaths every year in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Malawi.
That’s why Hillary and Bill Clinton don’t just shut the Foundation down, and hope that the Gates Foundation can fill the gaps. Because perhaps — just perhaps — they actually care about the lives of the nearly 12 million people with AIDS, and the 12 million people with Malaria, and the 50,000 kids per year that the Foundation saves.
What is so frustrating with Leibovich’s analysis is the assumption that per se the Clintons are motivated by some kind of ill-will, or at the very least a tragic character flaw. Never is consideration given to the possibilityh that maybe, just maybe, they haven’t shut their billion dollar foundation down because it saves lives, and they care.
Not to mention, Hillary hasn’t even won the election yet — should she really risk the survival of the foundation over the mere possibility that she wins in November? You don’t see Donald Trump divesting from all of his business ventures, lest he win.
Of course, in the end, Bill and Hillary get blamed because they’re Bill and Hillary. Had they decided this week to shutter the Clinton Foundation immediately, the pundits would have charged them with incredible hubris. After all, they’d argue, shutting down the Foundation now means Hillary is just assuming she’s going to win in November! Typical Clinton arrogance!
And in fact, something similar happened last week when Bill Clinton said that if Hillary wins, the Foundation will no longer accept corporate or foreign donations. What was the response? The media and pundits asked why the Clintons were waiting until November; and they added, wasn’t this an admission by the Clintons that there is a problem? So why didn’t Hillary do this years ago when she was Secretary?
The really lesson here is that there’s no winning when you’re Clinton.
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