Most Ridiculous Moment - April 26, 2015

Still recovering from the party they threw themselves last night, the Beltway media got right back into the swing of things, doing what they've done best for over 20 years – darkly hinting
the Clintons are guilty of some unnamed but nefarious crime.

Bob Schieffer had on anti-gay activist Tony Perkins, noting to his face, “The Southern Poverty Law Center has branded the Family Research Council an anti-gay hate group,” and observing, “We have been inundated by people
who say we shouldn't even let you appear because they, in their view — quote —
you don’t speak for Christians.”

The shows also addressed the CIA's so-called signature strikes, which killed two hostages, with Martha Raddatz noting “They not only did not know the hostages were there, they didn't
know one of the leaders of al Qaeda in India was there. So they clearly didn't have
a lot of information about this.”

Richard Clarke observed “when you do these signature strikes, meaning by definition, you don't know who you are killing, you just know the facility looks like an al Qaeda facility.”

On Meet The Press, Tom Donilon defended the drone strikes except for the “tragic unintended consequence” of the hostages who were killed.
He also said drone strikes don't create more terrorists, and had no doubt that if it
weren't for drone strikes Americans would
have been attacked again.

But the most absurd moments came in discussions of the so-called scandals involving the Clinton's philanthropy. On ABC, reporter Cecilia Vega spent several minutes breathlessly reciting accusations in a new unreleased book by a former Bush speech writer, then George Stephanopoulos interviewed the author, Peter Schweizer. His first question was quote “So how does your reporting show that Hillary Clinton may be unfit for the presidency?”

Stephanopoulos repeatedly pointed out that the author had no proof, no smoking gun, and no evidence for his allegations. The author repeated that that's why it warrants further investigation, and quote “deserves further scrutiny.” When asked if he had any evidence of Clinton's intervention in the sale of a uranium mine, he said “No, we don't have direct evidence. But it warrants further investigation.” When he cited his work with  
The New York Times, Stephanopoulos pointed out
“they haven't confirmed any evidence of any crime.” Schweizer replied “but it's not up to
an author to prove crime.”

But the most absurd moments came in discussions of the so-called scandals involving the Clinton's philanthropy. On ABC, reporter Cecilia Vega spent several minutes breathlessly reciting accusations in a new unreleased book by a former Bush speech writer, then George Stephanopoulos interviewed the author, Peter Schweizer. His first question was quote “So how does your reporting show that Hillary Clinton may be unfit for the presidency?”

Neutral observer Newt Gingrich said “That is clearly illegal. This is not about politics. It's illegal,” and “She eliminated 33,000 e-mails. Richard Nixon only erased 18 minutes.” He also said “I think there's a very simple case here. "The Constitution says you can't take this stuff. We have federal laws that say you can't take this stuff. If this was any person but Hillary Clinton, they'd be under indictment right now for a clearly straightforward problem.”

Mark Halperin is worried about Bill Clinton's increased speaking fees, and assured us that
“if she hadn't deleted the e-mails, and if they put
somebody on the show today to answer the questions, I think a lot of this could be put to rest.”
Jon Heileman said that in getting rid of
that e-mail server it gave the “appearance of
an obstruction of justice.”

On Meet The Press Republican Governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson declared the Clintons raised an “awful, ungodly amount of money,” proving that for Republicans there is indeed an amount of money too much even for God. Helene Cooper astutely observed quote “It all takes us back to the '90s, it feeds this aura that a lot of people have about the Clintons” and “people are talking about the Lincoln bedroom again” and “I don't think that this is a huge deal, but if feeds a problem she's going to continue to have.”
Chuck Todd quoted Jonathan Chait calling the
Clintons “greedy” and Ron Fournier, who said
it's part of the Clinton standard playbook
to criticize their critics.

Yahoo's Matt Bai agreed, saying “it's the arrogance” and “the idea that you never admit guilt, you never say you're sorry, and you kill the messenger.” He also observed the Clintons bring a knife to a gunfight, they fight hard, and “that doesn't wear well in Presidential politics.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin said “it boggles the mind” that Hillary doesn't deal with this personally and more aggressively, since Mitt Romney just accused her of bribery. Goodwin declared “You can't let that charge stand,” and said Hillary Clinton needs to be more like Teddy Roosevelt, and fight back harder against these accusations.

So, there's no direct evidence of wrongdoing, which is why we need another open-ended criminal investigation of the Clintons. The Clintons have raised an ungodly amount of money for charity, and they are 'greedy' and 'arrogant'. But the real problem is that they never admit guilt, and they fight back too hard. But they also need to be more like Teddy Roosevelt and stand up for themselves, and fight back against their critics.

And that's the most ridiculous thing
that happened this Sunday.

Audio: Most Ridiculous Moment This Sunday

Audio: Full Episode - Virtually Speaking, Sunday April 26, with David Dayen, EJ Eskow and Jay Ackroyd.