Bloomberg News leads the charge by announcing that somebody who gave money to the Clinton Foundation is being investigation by the feds for wrongdoing.

We suspect this is really why the press, for years, has been clamoring for the Clinton Foundation to release a list of its donors, which it recently did in order to aide Hillary Clinton's confirmation as SoS. The press wanted to see the donor list so the press could suggest that Clinton is tainted by his post-White House work.

We saw that most recently when the NYT published a dreadful piece of journalism that tried to raise questions about Clinton based on the fact that a wealthy business man who paid Clinton to speak before a group was being separately criticized by a group of his investors. Clinton, the Times seemed to suggest, was responsible for private investors upset with an international businessman. Talk about adopting new standards.

Anyway, Bloomberg trumpets this big news [emphasis added]:

Canadian investor Victor Dahdaleh, facing a U.S. federal probe of allegations that he helped Alcoa Inc. defraud a Bahrain government-controlled metals company, is among donors who gave as much as $5 million to former President Bill Clinton's charitable foundation... Dahdaleh's dispute with Bahrain shows how entanglements by Bill Clinton's financial backers may pose headaches for Hillary Clinton as the New York senator seeks confirmation as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state.

Quick journalism point. Bloomberg noted that the probe began in March. When did Dahdaleh give his money to the Clinton Foundation? Bloomberg either does not know or simply does not report the fact, which wouold offer some illumination, no? Because if Dahdaleh gave his money to the Foundation before his company was probed, Clinton would had to have been a fortune teller to see any pending (paper-thin) conflict. But again, Bloomberg leaves that pertinent information out.

Meanwhile, the actual significance of Dahdaleh giving money to a charity? Bloomberg never really says. But c'mon, there's an unrelated federal probe involved. (No indictments yet, of course.) Doesn't that speak for itself?

Actually, that's not entirely true. Bloomberg does uncover this quote:

“It certainly creates a couple of extra hurdles for the Obamawould administration,” said Joel Rosenthal, president of New York's Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Let's map this out. According to this person, Obama has troubles because the husband of his SoS choice runs a charity and among the 200,000 of people who gave money to that charity, one is being questioned by authorities regarding his business operation.

We're pretty sure that's the definition of guilt by association.

UPDATE: The WaPo's Eugene Robinson pens a Clinton donor column today. At the very top he announces it's “far-fetched” to think Hillary as SoS would be influenced by any of the Foundation donors. Nonetheless, he thinks the released donor list will “provoke suspicion and give rise to conspiracy theories.” So what does Robinson do? He spends pretty much his entire column fueling those suspicions by raising questions about the donors.

Behold this dreadful passage:

More ominous would be any perceived tilt toward India in its bitter standoff against neighboring Pakistan. The list reports several huge donations from Indian tycoons and a high-six-figure donation from the Confederation of Indian Industry. Pakistan is not similarly represented. I know this is a ridiculously slim thread from which to hang any charge of bias, or potential bias. But India and Pakistan, in their unbounded mutual suspicion, take the concept of paranoia to a new level. I guarantee that somewhere in Islamabad, a sense of grievance is already being nurtured.

I'd argue it's the Betlway press that suffers unbounded suspicion...of the Clintons.