“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” — Frank Sinatra, as Maj. Bennett Marco

“His brain has not only been washed, as they say … It has been dry-cleaned.” — Khigh Dhiegh, as Dr. Yen Lo

These lines from the 1962 classic film The Manchurian Candidate came to mind after I listened to President Obama’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

The president said, “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.”

Really? She would be equal to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and himself? Notice President Obama didn’t say she is “more qualified,” because that would diminish him and when it comes to narcissism, Obama and the Clintons make Donald Trump look like a shrinking violet.

In his effusive praise of Hillary Clinton, the president did not mention any specific accomplishments that might qualify her for the office. That is because there are none. There is a lot of symbolism, of course, but no substantive results as secretary of state, an unremarkable single term as a senator from New York, and eight years as first lady when, in 1993, she couldn’t get the Clintons’ health reform legislation through a majority Democratic Congress. There is, however, a long list of dubious and possibly criminal “achievements.”

Besides the questions surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server and whether secret government documents were compromised and possibly hacked by America’s adversaries, there is another issue the major media have completely ignored.

It involves an institution known as Laureate Education, the parent company of Walden University, an online, for-profit school, which in its practices, critics of Trump University might say sounds like the allegations made against that school. Several students at Walden claimed to have been repeatedly delayed and given added costs as they tried to obtain their degrees, leaving them in considerable debt. A lawsuit was filed by the students, but a spokesperson for Walden told me the suits were “resolved” and the students have re-enrolled.

Bill Clinton was paid an obscene $16.5 million between 2010 and 2014 to serve as an honorary chancellor for Laureate International Universities.

With the Clintons, the money tree never ceases bearing fruit. Are people seeking to buy influence with this amount of cash, or do they just like Bill and Hillary?

The major media mainly ignore such things because they function largely as an auxiliary to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

This and many other things from what conservative critics call “the Clinton crime foundation” ought to be red meat for Donald Trump. He should ask why the media are engaging in a near total blackout of Laureate Education and the enormous flow of money to the Clintons and their foundation from governments, institutions and individuals.

Speaking of qualifications, perhaps no president, or presidential candidate, has been bought and paid for more than Hillary Clinton. She comes to this contest not with a long list of accomplishments, but with a trail of “receipts” and IOUs. If she becomes president, donors might reasonably be expected to collect on their investment.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.

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