Editor's note: This is a piece of satire.

The disclosure that Charles and David Koch made a $900 million donation to the Clinton Foundation has stunned the crowded field of presidential hopefuls and appears to have put the 2016 presidential race in jeopardy.

“This is not something you just shrug off like a hypothetical about the Iraq War,” said a disconsolate Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination – or he was until the revelation about the Kochs’ donation put everyone’s campaign at risk.

“The world as we know it has forever changed,” Mr. Bush said.

An equally downcast Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin and another likely GOP presidential candidate, abruptly cut short his motorcycle ride in Iowa, telling reporters that the disclosure had become too much of distraction for him to continue.

Struggling at times to express himself, a shaken Mr. Walker said the discovery of the donation was forcing him “rethink my whole relationship with the Koch brothers as well as God.”

“There is going to be a lot soul searching over the next few weeks,” added Mr. Walker, who was expected to announce his candidacy late this month or early July.

“I just don’t know at this point whether I can find the strength to go on,” he said.

The Clinton Foundation and Charles and David Koch did their best to undo the damage to their brands and their candidates.

The Clinton Foundation pointed out in a statement that nothing illegal has been alleged about the foundation and sought to downplay the political significance of accepting a donation from the two wealthy donors who seemed most determined to prevent Hillary Clinton from getting elected president.

“Like other global charities,” Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the foundation, said on Thursday, “the Clinton Foundation receives support from individuals and organizations across all sectors of society, backgrounds and ideologies because they know our programs are improving the lives of millions of people around the world.”

David Koch acknowledged Thursday that he and his brother had made a donation to the Clinton Foundation without disclosing that contribution to their political beneficiaries — even as they championed efforts at bringing about the downfall of the Clintons and their foundation.

“I never meant this to become the embarrassment that it has,” he said. “But if we all work to together on this, I am confident we can find a solution that is satisfactory to everyone involved.”

But many of the presidential candidates seemed to take a dimmer view. Republican hopeful Carly Fiorina, who had been trying to catapult her long-shot candidacy by focusing on attacking Hillary Clinton in more aggressive and pointed ways than her male Republican rivals, said the disclosure that two of the biggest donors to conservative causes had made a sizeable donation to a foundation bearing Mrs. Clinton’s name was almost too much to bear – though she was making the best of it.

She said she did not regret appearing as one among many candidates seeking to curry favor from Charles and David Koch, despite the controversy recently over the brothers’ donation to the Clinton Foundation. “Last year we didn’t know all the things that we now know about the Koch brothers,” Ms. Fiorina said.

She was asked if she would continue campaigning.

“Well, that is a hypothetical,” she said. “All I can tell you is it is a lot harder out here for a woman – and I guess I am not without blame for that.”

The new revelation has not been good news for the Democratic candidates either. Mrs. Clinton reportedly is back to not answering questions – even ones from Bill. And the campaign of Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders has ground to a halt as its small staff tries to account for every one of the more than $1.5 million it raised in its first 24 hours to make sure none of it came from a Koch family member or the Clinton Foundation.

But as confusion over what to make of the Kochs’ donation has laid to waste what had been a formidable field, the name of one giant from the past – perhaps the only figure capable of bridging the enormous logical and ideological divide of a Clinton Foundation/Koch brothers alliance – has emerged as the only viable presidential candidate.

“Right now,” said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, “it’s Bill Clinton’s race to lose. And just maybe that’s what we deserve.”

Philip Maddocks writes a weekly satirical column. He can be reached at pmaddocks@wickedlocal.com.