This morning's New York Times comes with a big ol' story about Bill Clinton and one of his favorite foundation donors, Frank Giustra, and their travels to Kazakhstan, where Giustra bought up uranium rights while Clinton soothed the local crazy president. It looks super-juicy—juicy enough that America's First Blogger™ Matt Drudge gave it a teaser last night before publication. But in the light of day, no one's quite sure: Is this a scandal? Let's look!

• September 2005: The duo goes to Kazakhstan (which may or may not be the new Iceland for partying playboys, we think!) in Giustra's plane. They are wined and dined by president/oligarch Nursultan "Nursey" Nazarbayev. (Scandal level: Oh, like this doesn't happen every day?)

• Two days later, Giustra gets the rights—from the state-run uranium shop!—to buy into local uranium concerns. (Scandal level: That's business, boys.)

• Giustra gives the Clinton Foundation an unannounced $31.3 million shortly thereafter; $100 million follows. (Scandal level: Newly rich friends are prone to disbursing cash.)

• Everyone involved says Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the uranium deal. Except the president of the government's uranium company, who says Clinton totally did discuss it with President Nursey. (Scandal level: Mmm, Bill Clinton talks about lots of stuff. But, not good.)

• The Kazakh trip was arranged "hastily" as a "private visit"; the Times lets it go unsaid that this may be because Giustra was all, "Please come to a crazy part of the world and sweet-talk the local crazy chieftain for me." (Scandal level: Inconclusive.)

• Clinton told the Kazakh prez that he hoped the country would succeed in its bid to lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe—which nobody else wants to happen, particularly Clinton's wife. (Scandal level: Wacky.)

• Early last year, the head of the state uranium company comes over to the Clinton house in Chappaqua for some advice. That's fine. Then Clinton and Giustra say that meeting never happened. (Scandal level: WTF.)

• Giustra is forced to be like, "That escaped my memory!" And aides are forced to say that the attendees of the meeting weren't in Clinton's Trapper Keeper/Day-Timer/whatever he keeps track of stuff in. (Scandal level: Good grief. Amateur hour.)

There are just enough red flags here to make this look like something. Clinton's office by now should know that when reporters come around asking questions, they should maybe provide the right information on the first request. If there were no later-disproved denials here ("I did not talk mining with that oligarch!"), no one would bat an eyelash. Instead, everyone looks shady.

As a scandal, will this stick? Eh. Though a wee campaign smear op by the Barack Obama campaign—say, a flood of letters to editors and anonymous blog comments around the Internets—could help to bring a little tarnish to Clinton. And while conservative bloggers are already trumpeting this as sleazy—well, how exactly do they think foundations procure bundles of millions anyway? Friends: They help friends.