The questions are endless. Still, one query stumps me: Why would Hillary allow Bill to do so much dodgy stuff when she is vulnerable as a presidential candidate? Couldn’t they both wait until 2009?
From Richard Miniter.
And while Dick Morris would hardly qualify in the Clinton lexicon as a reliable source, he is often insightful, on the basis of his past experience with the Clintons. He writes:
Yet, in late 2006, as his wife was laying the ground work for a presidential race and serving in the U.S. Senate, Bill Clinton flew on a lavish private plane to the former Soviet State and met with its President, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, known best for eliminating all opposition in his country. In the short time that he was there, Clinton promoted Nazarbayev for chairman of a U.N. committee - a position that the United States government, and his own wife, had opposed. That made no difference to Clinton. Of course, he never mentioned anything at all about the rampant human rights violations.
Clinton was there as the guest of Frank Giustra, a Canadian billionaire who wanted to buy the country's uranium rights. Although he had no experience in this area of the world, he was suddenly awarded the contract which the New York Times termed a "monster deal.... [that] suddenly transformed the company into the world's largest uranium producers."Clinton made sure that the Kazahstan President understood that Giustra and Clinton were an item.
After the deal was closed, Clinton's foundation received a $31 million contribution from Giustra and a pledge of another $100 million.
What's wrong with that? Well, aside from deliberately and publicly undermining the articulated policy of the United States government, Bill Clinton traded his power and his prestige in exchange for an unprecedented contribution to his foundation, which refuses to release the names of its donors. Clinton has considerable latitude in how the foundation funds are spent and the foundation board is filled with his cronies.
Again there is considerably more worth reading. Find it here.
Mr. Giustra has been assiduous in crying foul about efforts by Bloomberg and others to get to the bottom of his relationship with Clinton. My own guess is that Bill has been the intuitive puppet master. If that is so I expect that Mr. G will have a few moments of chagrin before this is all over.
Will life be any better for the world's poor?
Try kiva.org if you want to help. The Clinton's have the fast track to themselves -- with evident support from the philanthropic establishment which has published the Clinton Foundation's announcements without comment.
I have a sudden impulse to wash my hands.
ADDENDUM:
To keep this on one page, here is a recent roundup of the Clinton-Guistra Connection as it manifests itself in Colombia. The full article is in the HuffPost.
Clinton has helped Frank Giustra, one of the biggest donors to the Clinton Global Initiative, score meetings with high-ranking Colombian officials. Giustra has several business interests in the country, and both he and Clinton have collaborated on an effort to fight poverty in developing world by partnering up with mining companies in Colombia and elsewhere.
What significance these ties have on the current presidential campaign is debatable. The former president was also a proponent of free trade agreements like NAFTA while in the White House. However, Sen. Clinton, as her campaign has repeatedly noted, has a long-standing opposition to the Colombia deal. And her acceptance of Penn's resignation (although he will still serve as a campaign adviser) was indicative that she did not approve of his meeting with the Colombia ambassador to the U.S.
"Senator Clinton's position is clear and unequivocal: She is opposed to the deal," said campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson.(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
