Bill
and Hillary Clinton “earned” — can a mortal earn such stratospheric sums? — “at
least $30 million over the last 16 months, mainly from giving paid speeches to
corporations, banks and other organizations,” The New York Times reports. “They
have now earned more than $125 million on the [lecture] circuit since leaving
the White House in 2001.”
This
is an important issue. But the big story has little to with what actually
matters.
Coverage
of the Clintons’ spectacularly lucrative speaking career has focused on how it
affects Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign — specifically the political
damage caused by the public’s growing perception that Hillary is out of touch
with the common man and woman. It is a promising line of inquiry for her
detractors (myself included).
Hillary
is out of touch. She hasn’t been behind the wheel of an automobile for nearly
20 years, is a multi-multi-millionaire who nevertheless considered herself
“dead broke” and still believes that she and her husband are not among “the
truly well off.” (Maybe Bill still drives.)
Ostentatious
wealth coupled with tone-deafness didn’t help Mitt “47 percent” Romney in 2012,
or John “I can’t remember how many houses I own” McCain in 2008 — and they were
Republicans, a party that gleefully despises the poor and jobless. For a
Democrat under heavy fire from her party’s progressive base — with Elizabeth
Warren, Bill di Blasio and Bernie Sanders leading the charge — this stuff could
be politically fatal.
But
the media ought to focus on the real issue. FDR was wealthy, yet he created the
social safety net as we know it (what’s left of it, anyway). JFK and RFK came
from money, yet no one doubted their commitment to help the downtrodden.
Liberals distrust Hillary due to her and her husband’s long record of kowtowing
to Wall Street bankers and transnational corporations, supporting jobs-killing
“free trade” agreements, backing the NSA’s intrusions into our privacy and as
an unrepentant militarist. Her progressivism appears to have died with her law
career.
Conflict
of interest: that’s why we should be concerned about all those $250,000
speeches.
The
big question is: Why do corporations and banks shell out a quarter of a million
dollars for a Hill Talk?
Corporations
and banks don’t pay big bucks to Hillary Clinton because they’re dying to hear
what she has to say. After having been front and center on the national
political scene for a quarter century, she and Bill don’t have new insights to
share. And even if I’m wrong — even if you’re a CEO and you’re dying to learn
her ultimate (new) recipe for baking cookies — you don’t have to invite her to
speak to your company to get the dish. You can ask one of your CEO pals who
already had her speak at his firm — or pay to attend one of the zillions of
other lectures she gives.
This
is not about Hillary’s message.
Corporations
and banks bribe the Clintons to buy political favors. The speaking racket is a
(flimsy) cover.
Like,
there’s the time Goldman Sachs paid $200,000 for a Bill Talk a few months
before the financial conglomerate lobbied Hill when she was secretary of state.
At least 13 companies paid Bill and Hill at least $2.5 million in similar
sleazy deals.
Those
are just the brazen quid pro quo deals.
Among
the companies that have lined Hillary’s pockets over the last 16 months are “a
mix of corporations (GE, Cisco, Deutsche Bank), medical and pharmaceutical
groups (the California Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical Care
Management Association), and women’s organizations like the Commercial Real
Estate Women Network,” the Times says. “Mr. Clinton’s speeches included a
number of talks for financial firms, including Bank of America and UBS, as well
as technology companies like Microsoft and Oracle.”
GE,
Cisco and Deutsche Bank aren’t run by idiots. Nor are lobbying groups like the
female realtors. Their boards know that Hillary may well become president. Even
if she loses, those bribes — er, speaking fees — are a smart investment in
Washington influence. The Clintons have strong ties at the highest levels of
the Democratic Party establishment and on Wall Street. If you’re GE, it makes sense
to make nice with people whose help you might want someday, so they’re likelier
to pick up the phone when you call to, say, grease the skids for a merger in
danger of getting derailed by antitrust laws.
Laws
governing the sale of political access are relatively clear, but rarely
enforced. The ethics, however, are simple: Honest people don’t take money from
people they may be charged with governing or regulating in the future.
“Behind
every great fortune,” Balzac maintained, “lies a crime.” If there were any
justice, the Clintons would be in prison for a generation of criminal activity
that has left America a corrupted, Third Worldified nation, poorer for having
been looted by the companies and banks whose criminality they aided and
abetted.
Syndicated columnist and author Ted Rall is
the political cartoonist at The Los Angeles Times. © 2015 Ted Rall
Comments
I usually don’t republish articles written by
Liberals, but this one is instructive and was published in the Japan Times. We
conservatives join him in his criticism of this bi-partisan corruption.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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