Topic: Newsmax
Lest you thought that NewsMax was going all squishy and abandoning its Clinton-hating heritage, fear not.
In a Dec. 19 column, Charles R. Smith stands ready to fill the void with baseless smears and other unsubstantiated claims about the Clintons that we thought NewsMax gave up in its quest to be taken seriously a legitimate news organization. He starts off by calling Hillary Clinton a "part-time senator"; he quickly moves on to recycling old would-be scandals.
FBI files? Yep: "It served Hillary and her hit squad to snatch the FBI files and rifle through the lives of potential opponents."
The "body count"? Gotcha: "There is also that nagging problem about the body count she has left behind. Vince Foster, Moctar Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie "yah-lin" Trie, John Huang, Ron Brown, and Webster Hubbell come to mind."
Chinagate? Yupper: "Mrs. Clinton has a few of her own pictures to live down, including one with convicted "Chinagate" figure Moctar Riady, and a photo of her with convicted cocaine smuggler Jorge Cabrera in front of the White House Christmas tree."
Even Smith appears to be bored by the whole thing and shifts into greatest-hits=medley mode:
I can hardly list her repeated scandals in a single article: For example dealing in cattle futures, firing the White House travel office, messing with health care, smearing hubby's girlfriends, blaming the far right for all her problems, and missing Rose office records reappearing out of a wormhole in time/space.
Smith then suggests that one way for Hillary to be elected president "would be for Bill Clinton to die. No one would dare oppose the mourning widow. Not a whisper would be issued about Riady money, Chinese generals, or Monica." He then quickly adds: " Don't get me wrong. I would willingly take a bullet for Bill Clinton if only to protect my financial interests in writing about his future scandals." Then, to demonstrate just how craven he is, Smith concludes:
Of course, I'd vote for Hillary. I'm sure that stuns most of my readers but clearly, a pundit with a book in the ready, filled with facts about the life and times of our future president, would want her to win. Never mind ideology or that little bit of corruption. Money will sway my vote — because skeletons make for best sellers. So prospective publishers take note, I am waiting anxiously by the phone.
What's missing in Smith's eagerness to cash in on Hillary, of course, is any hint of why he should be taken any more seriously than the many, many others who have ridden the Clinton scandal gravy train to increasingly diminishing returns. Maybe he should have a little chat with his NewsMax boss, Christopher Ruddy, who himself long ago abandoned the beat.
