Last week, a big to-do was made over the fact that the Clintons
have made a lot of money speaking, consulting, and book dealing.
The New York Times reported that the two “earned $109 million over
the last eight years.”
The Times described this as “an ascent into the
uppermost tier of American taxpayers” that had seemed
“unimaginable” when this poor, beleaguered, bloodied couple “left
the White House with little money and facing millions in legal
bills.”
This became ridiculously big news. The Drudge Report blared
“CLINTONS SHOW $109M IN INCOME SINCE LEAVING WHITE HOUSE.” The talk
shows ate it up. Saturday Night Live opened with a sketch
in which Bill and Hillary (played by Darrell Hammond and Amy
Poehler) bragged about their extravagant earnings.
The SNL Hillary said that she was even considering
dropping out because she could very well be the “wrong choice for
millions of Americans who don’t seem able to make money.” These
voters, she teased, might be better off with Barack Obama, so she
would stand down. Really? “Psych! That’s never gonna happen,” said
Poehler/Hillary.
Like most SNL political sketches, the bit poked fun not
only at politicians but also the press. Why had this become “news”
only recently, with the release of the Clintons’ tax returns?
Well, explained fake Hillary, “We made it hard for [reporters]
to find out that we were rich by hiding out in our house in
Westchester” with all that cash apparently tucked away in closets
and under mattresses.
THE CLINTONS’ INCOME didn’t upset or shock me in the slightest. If
anything, it was a bit surprising they hadn’t cracked $200 million.
Maybe Bill has been taking it easy or devoting a lot of time to
somebody’s campaign?
I was not shocked because this was old news — practically
ancient, in fact. In R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s most recent book
The Clinton Crack-Up, page five,
paragraph two, we learn that in Bill Clinton’s “first four years
out of the White House, he earned over $43 million after
expenses…”
The next page directs us to Appendix I, a list of the conniving
couple’s fees for speeches and book royalties and other income. The
first three entries tell us that Bill earned $125,000, $150,000,
and $125,000 for speeches to Morgan Stanley, the Aventura-Turnberry
Jewish Center, and Oracle in February of 2001 and he wasn’t even
done for the month. The list continues for ten pages.
The book was published in May of last year. You may wonder, how
did Tyrrell (who, full disclosure, signs my paychecks; plus we
share the same publisher) get his hands on this illuminating
information?
Did he plant a mole in the Clinton campaign? Did he take off his
tailored jacket and go diving through the Clintons’ trash for
financial clues? Did he consult a psychic? No, I’m afraid it was
less exotic than that. He simply looked at Hillary Clinton’s
senatorial disclosure reports, which are required by law and fairly
easy to access.
In other words, this was information that reporters and
columnists could have got their hands on all along. And yet it
wasn’t widely reported until last week, when the Clintons handed
their tax returns to them on a silver platter. No one should ever
mistake our political press for a curious press.
THE RECENT FLAP OVER the Clintons’ serious coin has Tyrrell
scratching his head, and I can’t blame him. The worst criticism of
The Clinton Crack-Up, which he bristles at, was that this
was all “old news.” That usually works out to be journalist-speak
for “don’t bother.”
OK, but if this was “old news” then, why is it suddenly
hot and newsworthy? What’s changed? Hillary was then a candidate
for president. She had already announced “I’m in. And I’m in to
win.” The potential conflicts of interest with Bill’s speechifying
and consulting existed then just as much as today.
Granted, there are usually write-ups when presidential
contenders make their tax returns available, but the coverage falls
far short of the full court press (pardon the pun) that the
Clintons have received. What’s different now?
One possibility is that most upper middle class Democrats, and
therefore most editors and reporters of our nation’s big papers as
well as television producers, are Obama supporters who think that
Hillary should hurry up and drop out of the race already.
Whom elite liberals are pulling for really does shape political
coverage in ways great and small. Anybody that tells you otherwise
is selling something — probably a New York Times
subscription. Their views play a great role in shaping what’s
considered news and what isn’t (“old news”).
FOR INSTANCE, THE OTHER week it came out that Hillary Clinton’s
people had been distributing a piece by one Robert M. Goldberg that
had been published on The American Spectator’s
website.
The substance of Goldberg’s article
was the foreign policy views of an Obama advisor, retired General
Merrill McPeak, who made headlines accusing Bill Clinton of using
“divisive tactics” and of “question[ing] Barack Obama’s
patriotism.” The general also likened the former president to Joe
McCarthy.
Goldberg recalled some even more controversial statements that
the blunt speaking McPeak had made in an old interview with the Oregonian in
2003.
When they were talking about how to get the U.S. government to
help resolve the ongoing problems with Israel and the Palestinians,
one of the interviewers asked him the very opposite of a loaded
question: “So where’s the problem? State? White House?” McPeak
answered, “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote…here in
favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.”
McPeak then advocated that Israel make certain concessions and
put the cherry on top with a semi coherent rant about how, well,
I’ll just quote the man: “There’s an element in Oregon, you know,
that’s always going to be radical in some pernicious way, and
likely to clothe it in religious garments, so it makes it harder to
attack. So there’s craziness all over the place.”
Realizing he might have dug himself in there, the general
emphasized that he had spent some time as a junior officer working
“very closely with the Israeli air force” and that he had found
that “more cosmopolitan, liberal version of the Israeli population”
to be just chock full of that sort of “goodwill” necessary to give
a bunch of land back to the Palestinians.
GOLDBERG POINTED THIS OUT and the Hillary camp rightly decided this
was a story worth passing around to raise serious questions about
an Obama advisor who had laid into them. How did the press respond
to this?
They went nuts. At the Atlantic, former Jimmy Carter
speechwriter James Fallows produced a representative response. He called it a “hit
piece” and claimed that the Clinton camp passing it around was
“simply disgusting.”
Fallows huffed: “That the Clinton family would dignify The
American Spectator, of all publications, is astonishing to
anyone who was alive in the 1990s.”
And he puffed: “That they would bless this attempt to paint
Merrill McPeak as an anti-Semite is grotesque.”
And he blew a deep sigh: “I can easily believe that the
Spectator would publish such an article. That the Clinton
team would circulate it I’m still trying to deal with.”
There you have it. The Spectator published an article
that was relevant, accurate, and hard hitting enough that even
Hillary Clinton couldn’t ignore it. That’s driven some refined
folks, who are used to being able to write these things off as “old
news,” right around the bend.
