"Hillary Clinton Faces Test of Record as Women’s Advocate" was the title of the New York Times article.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
But it turns out, the record discussed isn't even HRC's. Instead, the record is that of Arab states. But through the magic of reporting the controversy instead of common sense, the NYTimes managed to hang other countries' practices, some of which she has criticized by name, on her.
By reporting the criticisms of a charity, not for what it does, but for what the people giving money to it do, the NYTimes continues its complicity with the VRWC in finding new standards to apply to Clintons only.
More behind the orange superampersand.
I invite you to read the article from the back forward, so that you can see how merely rearranging the reportage makes it clear that the article sought to bury a skim of the actual record of HRC and report a weakass "controversy".
To find the actual record of HRC on women's issues, please proceed past the discussion of emails (of course) to the final paragraphs:
Both events explicitly invoke Mrs. Clinton’s forceful speech in Beijing as first lady in 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women, when she gave a devastating litany of abuse afflicting women around the world and declared: “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights".
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The Beijing speech has been a touchstone for Mrs. Clinton since she stepped down as secretary of state in early 2013.
At the State Department, Mrs. Clinton emphasized how empowering women and girls could also enhance economies, national security and the overall progress of a country. She appointed a close aide, Melanne Verveer, as the first United States ambassador at large for global women’s issues.
Yes, yes, yes. Four whole sentences to her actual record. at the end, interrupting it for the comment of Rand Paul's supporter Bruce Fein that the Beijing speech wasn't very profound. Hooray.
But back to what the Times really wanted to talk about, toward the front of the piece:
But the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars in donations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Algeria and Brunei — all of which the State Department has faulted over their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues.
How does that rate a "but"? It's a non sequitur. To explain how the acts of the donors matter to anyone in the face of good work by the Foundation is the ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush Administration (!):
“It’s a perfect example of the conflict of interest here,” said Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.
Yes, it IS a conflict of interest....for the donors, who are giving money to a foundation that is acting contrary to their own beliefs with regard to rights. After all, what there is no suggestion that the Clinton Foundation isn't coming out strong, for real.
But a conflict for the charity? How do you figure? I don't think anyone B.C. (Before Clinton) ever suggested that a charity is supposed to delete donors who aren't on board with its mission, much less delete donors that aren't on board for just ONE of its missions.
The explanation is that the Times is approving of the Republican attempts to cast the charity as a campaign fund. Without comment, the Times transmits RNC framing:
And on Wednesday, the Republican National Committee released a biting video showing President Obama calling political donations from foreign sources “a threat to our democracy” — and Mrs. Clinton smiling next to several Middle East leaders.
See what it did there? Donations to a charity aren't political donations. And all the Middle East got for its donations was a shellacking on rights.
And there's the no win that the Times put HRC into: if the charity adheres to HRC's values, it's only to elect her president. If it strays, it's to mollify donors. Because Some Say.