All that dovetailed nicely with Hillary's blitz of the mainstream media Sunday talk shows where, in a single morning, she held a rapid-fire round of high profile, prime time satellite interviews with every network that matters. She smiled - a lot, looked relaxed and laughed - a lot.
It was a Clinton Inc. media tour de force. This power couple have always been a team, and they still are. Anyone who thinks the timing of Bill's goodness offensive and Hillary's race for the Democratic Party nomination are mere coincidence just haven't been paying attention for the last twenty years or so.
As the couple knew they would, the media took bait. The Clintons called the tune and as they twirled to the that tune a real story lurked right under their lazy noses. a story that says a lot more about the Clintons than the puffy "did she laugh too much" pablum the media spun for public consumption.
It was during the height of that Hill-Bill media blit that an email popped into my box. It was from a well-connected old friend on the east coast. He wrote he was at a Clinton fund raiser rubbing elbows with, to quote him -- “an old friend of yours.” Knowing this guy as I do I sensed sarcasm, and I was right.
“It's Farhad Azima,” he announced, knowing, I am sure, that the very mention of this character in any setting would get my attention, but at Clinton fund raiser! Holy cow!
I shot him an email back asking what that guy was doing anywhere near a Hillary Clinton fund raiser.
He replied, “Not Hillary. Bill.”
Ah, yes, it was one of Bill Clinton's Global Innovative fund raisers. The whole previous week had been all CGI all the time, as Bill hosted the rich and powerful from around the world all looking to do well by doing good.
But the question remained; what was Farhad Azima, doing there? Why would the Clintons expose themselves to bad publicity just a couple of weeks after Hillary was forced to return nearly a million bucks she took from felonious fugitive, Norman Hsu? (Another instance where a single Nexis/Lexis search by a curious reporter would have broken that story months ago.)
Admittedly Azima is a bit of a different kind of problem since he's never been charged or convicted of any crimes,as Hsu had. But, as you will see if read on, there might be a reason for that, a quite extraordinary reason. Still a few Google searches would net the curious reporter some pretty startling allegations -- and lots of them. Sure it's just smoke, but so much smoke it would trigger a five-alarm response from any fire department worths it's salt.
In lieu of a real media vetting of Farhad Azima he has become grist for the conspiracy theorists, who have now woven him into nearly every murky event short of the Lindberg kidnapping. In the world of conspiracy theorists 6% of separation is enough to throw their own grandmothers into the mix.
Maybe that's what's kept real journalists away. Anyone who's been a reporter for very long knows that the fastest way to ruin their career is to dive into one of these tales and try to sort the truth from the mis- and dis-information that swirl around characters like Farhad Azima. I personally knew two veteran reporters who were last seen following such bread crumbs sure they were onto the biggest stories of their lives. They're still out there -- somewhere.
But, since I am retired and no longer have a career to ruin, what the hell.
Besides, Azima and I have a history.
Farhad Azima: Born in Iran in 1941, into a family that was reportedly close to the Shah. (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
