Stop the presses!

Sorry if we sound out of breath. (Pant, pant.) But we need for the news to slow down a bit. Maybe even stop. For a minute. (Huff, puff.) We can’t seem to catch up, no matter how fast we run. (Whew.) Where’s the Gatorade?

Here’s part of what we said in this column only back on Wednesday:

Then there’s something called the Clinton Foundation, without the “Family” part in the title. And the Washington Post reported last week that more than half of the big donors to that outfit— those who have given a million dollars or more— are corporations or foreign groups or governments. The Post tallied them up in a feat of investigative journalism … . Among the big givers were the governments of Saudi Arabia, Barclay’s Bank in Britain, and American companies like CocaCola and ExxonMobil. Not to mention the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.

The Clinton presidential campaign now has announced some new, mainly cosmetic reforms to avoid the obvious impression that it would be prudent for both American and foreign donors to invest in the next president of the United States. And that president, it appears more and more likely, will be Hillary Clinton as her Republican opponent continues to self-destruct. How handy to have all those chits in their hands when it comes time to collect.

But why wait till now to announce these supposed reforms? Weren’t they just as much an ongoing conflict of interest when Hillary Rodham Clinton was “only” secretary of state? And why wait to announce that they won’t go into effect until just after election day? Which means donors could rush to give the Foundation big money just before November’s election, when it would matter most.

Half of the big donors to the Clinton Foundation were big corporations or foreign governments? How yesterday. How old news. How August 23.

For the very morning — Wednesday the 24th— that our editorial above was published, we saw the new news in the news section. This time by the hard workers at the Associated Press, who found that more than half the people outside the government who met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave money to the Clinton Foundation. Either personally or through their professional outfits.

Whether a Wall Street type or a banker from overseas, at least 85 of the 154 people with private interests who got face (or voice) time with Hillary Clinton when she was at State gave to the Foundation. How much? According to the AP, about $156 million overall.

The AP was careful to say that the meetings don’t appear to violate any legal agreements the Clintons signed before the missus joined State, but—and with the Clintons there’s always a but—

“But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with [Hillary] Clinton.” Fuels perceptions. That’s one way to put it. Now then, what are the odds that once this editorial is printed, the front page will carry another news story about the drip, drip, drip of the Hillary Clinton scandal-a-day? Can we at least go two days without another batch of scandal news? Just so we can catch up?

Come on, guys. Some of us aren’t as young as we used to be.