Liberal Journalist Rushes to Hail Chelsea Clinton for Her 'Unshakeable Obsession with Diarrhea'

August 24th, 2013 11:39 PM

Joe Conason is still trying to be the number one journalistic ring-kisser to the Clinton family. His latest effort is fawning all over Chelsea Clinton, the humanitarian (and occasional NBC News correspondent.) He complained on her behalf that “the political press still seems far more inclined to ruminate over her supposed ambitions rather than report her real concerns.”

Chelsea is Nobel Prize material, Conason wants you to know, with global concerns that include, “among other things, an unshakeable obsession with diarrhea.” In a Third World, sense of course:

[S]he is willing to confess that “I personally am obsessed with diarrhea”—meaning the symptoms of waterborne disease that leads to diarrhea, dehydration and death for millions of children annually across Africa. Aside from her growing experience in the field, she holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University. “I wish that someone wanted to talk about diarrhea and why I think we really have the chance to eradicate diarrhea, even before every country across the African continent or across the world has strong public health systems of sanitation and clean water.... Yes, I wish the mainstream media were interested in things like our growing work in diarrhea or the work that we’re doing in agriculture or the work we’re doing on HIV/AIDS and how important that is.”

Conason was one of the ogling correspondents who traveled to Africa with Chelsea and her father Slick Willie, and this is where the goo really began to flow freely, on how the press fails to give the Clintons enough credit for their work in Africa:

The tumultuous welcome received by the Clinton delegation at every stop suggested the impact of the foundation’s work, from life-saving AIDS medications and quality health services provided to millions across the continent to pioneering agricultural support for small farmers to major renewable energy projects—as well as a newly announced initiative to produce and manufacture fortified foods in six African countries with the aim of ending child malnutrition on the continent.

All of the Clintons have visited Africa repeatedly—at least nine or 10 times for the former president—creating relationships that will serve their own country well as that continent’s economic and political importance grow. This year, however, marked the 15th anniversary of Bill Clinton's historic 1998 presidential visit, which had been preceded by a tour that Chelsea and Hillary Rodham Clinton undertook the year before. While the American media covered some of those visits and ignored others, the wide-ranging philanthropic endeavors of the former president—and now his daughter—have almost always gotten inadequate attention (with CNN as the honorable exception).

Joe Conason would like you to believe that Bill Clinton's 1998 trip to Africa was somehow the most historic thing he achieved that year -- instead of getting impeached.