For the hate of Hillary.

AuthorCole, Tanner
PositionClinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich - Book review

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

By Peter Schweizer

Harper. 256 pages. $19.59.

Since Hillary Clinton entered the public eye, she's been the target of a torrent of conservative rage. In 2007, columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote a book comparing her to Mussolini. In a 2015 tome, religious academic Bob Thiel explained how Hillary could bring about the prophetic destruction of America.

During Clinton's 2008 campaign, John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine, wrote a strategically timed book titled Can She Be Stopped? It called her America's "worst nightmare." Last year, Weekly Standard editor Daniel Halper unleashed Clinton, Inc., followed by investigative reporter Aaron Klein's The REAL Benghazi Story.

Other titles in the genre include Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and The Hillary Trap: Looking for Power in All the Wrong Places.

Most of these are easy to dismiss: nutty, mean, occasionally bloodthirsty. But there is something noteworthy about the number of journalists, authors, and academics filling hundreds of pages with critiques. Hating Hillary is a national pastime.

In his latest book, Clinton Cash, author Peter Schweizer holds a magnifying glass to Hillary's political career. With a debut at number two on the New York Times bestseller list and an ecstatic reception by the pundits on Fox News, Schweizer's book may be a classic piece of anti-Clinton literature.

Clearly, the cultural backlash both Clintons have stirred up, including a hefty dose of rightwing misogyny, accounts, in part, for the rise of the anti-Hillary genre. But Clinton Cash is more compelling than the screeds with which it shares a shelf, because of the heft of Schweizer's critique.

Schweizer outlines his thesis in chapter one: "We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefitting those providing the funds." He calls the Clinton Foundation, a huge umbrella of global charities, a "middle man" that keeps Clinton promotion "clearly central" to its purpose.

Schweizer and his team of investigators, who "asked that their names not be included in the acknowledgments," explore Clinton's tax forms, leaked documents, news reports, and public speeches. At times, Schweizer sounds like he's sitting across the table with a grin, waving a thick stack of...

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