Supplemental: The jihad keeps rolling along!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2014

Hillary Clinton's speaking fee and the sick society: Once the press corps invents a theme, the corps’ “rock makers”—just click here—have always been extremely skilled at advancing that theme along.

Case in point: We were struck by a letter in today’s Washington Post. It’s the only letter on the topic of Hillary Clinton’s wealth.

On line, the letter appears above all other letters. Headline included, this is what it says:
Just like CEOs, Hillary Clinton’s compensation is too high

The article “Clinton’s fee for speech paid by a private fund, UCLA says” [news, June 28] reported that Hillary Clinton received $300,000 for a single speech at the University of California at Los Angeles. That compensation tracks with the ridiculous pay for chief executives. Even though Ms. Clinton’s UCLA speaking fee was paid by a private fund, the bottom line is that we have a sick society.

WSL, Kensington
In hard-copy editions, the letter appears beneath this headline: “Hillary Clinton’s overcompensation.”

We’d have to say the Post is ratcheting its published language. Clinton’s fee isn’t just “grotesque” and “obscene” today. Through this letter, the Post helps us see that her compensation is a sign that we have “a sick society!”

We agree with that letter in certain broad respects. We think there are obvious problems with the levels of compensation observed at the top of our various pig-piles—with the vast sums paid to our leading “journalists,” to cite an important example.

But how odd! This letter cites, and links to, last Saturday’s news report by Philip Rucker, the cub reporter from Yale. But the letter fails to mention this key point from that report:

The $300,000 in question is going to the Clinton Foundation to fund charitable concerns!

Wouldn’t you think a leading newspaper would want to include that basic fact, especially when such heated language is being thrown around? If you think that, you don’t understand the small minds and low IQs of our “mainstream press corps.”

Further question: Has the Post really received no letters challenging its jihad concerning Clinton’s wealth? We find that a bit hard to believe. But no such letters appear today, just that one overwrought cri de coeur (“cry of the corps”).

Make no mistake—this is the way our papers behave when they get on a jihad. At present, the Post is on this particular jihad. As we noted yesterday, the New York Times is not.

In his column today for The National Memo, Gene Lyons adds a fact about that UCLA speaking fee—a fee which is very high:
LYONS (7/2/14): Following ABC’s Diane Sawyer, a celebrity journalist earning more money than LeBron James—a reported $20 million a year—the Post spent last week belaboring Bill and Hillary Clinton’s lofty income, often without doing the most basic kinds of due diligence.

“Clinton’s rarefied life could be a liability in campaign,” was the headline above Philip Rucker’s June 23 report. It expressed concern that the former Secretary of State’s Washington home is “appointed like an ambassador’s mansion.”

Which, um, is precisely what it used to be.

A few days later came “How the Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ to rich.” Rucker’s third effort complained about the “grotesque” and “obscene” amounts Hillary earns giving speeches—money which, the Post neglected to point out, most often goes directly to The Clinton Foundation, the family’s widely praised charitable endeavor.

Indeed, if you visit the organization’s website, you’ll learn that President and Secretary Clinton are currently matching all gifts, “dollar for dollar.”
The Clintons are matching all gifts dollar for dollar? Is that part of our sick society too?

We’re just saying!

Back in the 1990s, Lyons literally wrote the book on the press corps’ wars against the Clintons. His first book, published by Harper’s magazine, bore this unacceptable title:

Fools for Scandal:
How the Media Invented Whitewater

Within the press corps, you’re not allowed to say that the corps invented a pseudo-scandal. For that reason, Fools for Scandal was widely ignored, despite its provenance at a major journal like Harper’s.

Lyon’s second book on the subject, written with Joe Conason, was called The Hunting of the President. For obvious reasons, major “journalists” avoided its contents too.

The press corps’ long jihad against the Clintons and Gore constitutes a truly remarkable journalistic episode. The most remarkable part of the story is the way the “career liberal” world has agreed that this long-running, viral jihad mustn’t be discussed, explored, reported, revealed, opposed or resisted.

Hillary Clinton isn’t our own favorite pol. But she may well be the next Dem nominee—and the last time the liberal world let the press attack a major Dem this way, the silence of our self-serving lambs sent George W. Bush to the White House.

They won’t tell you that either.

Despite what happened in that campaign; despite the Swift-boating of Candidate Kerry; despite the gender-trashing handed to Clinton in Campaign 2008; despite these precedents, the lambs are keeping their traps shut again. Tomorrow, we’ll continue with our basic anthropological question:

What kinds of people do this?

Still coming: Cable stylings from CNN’s Hoover and Hostin

Correction from yesterday: Hoover and Hostin appeared together with Erin Burnett on three separate programs last week.

They discussed Clinton’s troubling wealth on Monday, June 23; on Wednesday, June 25; and on Friday, June 27. True to the script, their twinned concern—from the left and the right!—pretty much never abated.

22 comments:

  1. Dear Bob,

    Point made.

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  2. I would be more in agreement with your critique if the "charitable donations" mentioned weren't going to the CLINTON Foundation. While it may well be "widely praised", it certainly isn't above reproach:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/us/politics/unease-at-clinton-foundation-over-finances-and-ambitions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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    1. It's hard to see where the beef is in that report? That people in an organization disagree with each other? That a prominent actress (Natalie Portman) was provided with first class airfare to attend a conference? There does not seem to be anyone claiming the foundation doesn't do a lot of good work, so your punctilious concern with the fact that it's a Clinton foundation seems to have no foundation.

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    2. When Natalie Portman becomes a serious candidate for president, then questions about how well she understands the struggles of ordinary people while jetting around first-class to conferences will become entirely relevant.

      And even baseball players set up family charitable foundations. Good for them, but it is not hard to understand that their motives might not be completely altruistic.

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    3. Had Bob Somerby seen that NY Times article about the Clinton Foundation and read Maureen Dowd's follow up, I'm certain as to what he would have said about it.

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  3. Surprise, surprise! The first time a potential candidate's speaking fees are made into an issue, that person just happens to be a woman. So Ruth Marcus becomes a necessary collaborator.

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  4. It doesn't matter how rich the people who ask the question are.
    It doesn't matter how hypocritical or bad the motivation is.
    It doesn't matter who else does it.

    The question about the size of the fees and who is paying them is legitimate.

    What matters is how bad the answers were.

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    Replies
    1. No, it is not a legitimate question. It is a distraction and a way to imply that Hillary is doing something wrong without actually identifying something she has actually done wrong. It stinks.

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  5. I'm still waiting for Mitt Romney to release all his tax returns.

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    1. That was not a legitimate demand. It was a distraction and a way to imply Romney did something wrong without actually identifying something he has actually done wrong. It stinks.

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    2. It's not a demand, it's a request. It would have stopped being a distraction as soon as he released them. Too bad he didn't. He'd have been a great president.

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  6. "LYONS: Following ABC’s Diane Sawyer, a celebrity journalist earning more money than LeBron James—a reported $20 million a year . . ."

    Mr. Lyons needs to check LeBron's TOTAL income. Yes, his basketball salary is about $19 million (before he opted out of his contract) a year, but he also makes a large swag through endorsements.

    It was recently reported that LeBron took one percent of Dr. Dre's company stock in exchange for endorsing and making commercials for his Beat headphones.

    Dr. Dre recently sold the company for $3 billion, earning LeBron a cool $30 million.

    And that is from just one endorsement deal.

    Now I suppose there is some irony in Sawyer asking questions about how well anyone else understands the struggles of real people.

    But let's stop pretending that it was the question, not the annswer, that created the flub here.

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  7. I don't understand everything I've read about this topic. Here are some things that puzzle me:

    1. Someone (it may have been Bob) said the Clinton's were matching donations to the Clinton Foundation dollar for dollar. However, in 2012 the Clinton Foundation received contributions of $113 million and grants of $115 million. The Clinton's are not rich enough to match that amount of money.

    2. Hillary is being harmed by the big speaking fees. If her rich supporters gave the same amount of money direct to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary spoke for free, Hillary would be spared that embarrassment. Why do some very rich people nevertheless donate money to the Clinton Foundation via some university speaking fee? A donation directly to the Foundation would be tax deductible. Do they gain some hidden financial advantage by donating via a university?

    3. The Clinton Foundation is run by friends of the Clintons. Can the Foundation use its wealth to indirectly benefit Hillary's run for the President? (It's easy to see how this could happen. E.g., the Foundation could be more generous with organizations supporting Clinton than with organizations opposing her.)

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    1. Well, for Q1. It was Gene Lyons that said it, not Bob, and he said "currently", not "always."

      Q2 Well, is Hillary being paid instead of the foundation? We really don't know since the press corps is reading from a prepared script. Besides,"Hillary" takes up much less space than "The Clinton Foundation" and is easier to type, too. What difference does it make now?

      Q3. Citizens United cuts both ways. We may never know the truth, but what the hey, let's publish stories about it anyway. Let the bloggers do the fact checking.

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    2. I understand your sincere concern about the Clinton Foundation DinC. It's unfortunate that we have to endure shady characters like the Clinton's creating sham foundations that pretend to help millions around the world with billions$$$$. Who do they think they're kidding?

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    3. Q2. Sure, they could give under whatever conditions they like. It's just more fun if Hillary gives a speech. It's like a charity ball or a raffle -- a way to make giving fun.

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  13. BE CAREFUL HERE NOBODY CAN HELP YOU HERE OR EVEN SUGGEST HOW YOU CAN GET YOUR EX OR LOVE BACK,ANY TESTIMONIES OF MOST SPELL CASTER HERE MUST BE IGNORE.BECAUSE MOST OF THEM ARE SCAM I MEAN REAL SCAM WHICH I WAS A VICTIM AND I GOT RIPPED OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS BECAUSE I WAS SO ANXIOUS TO GET MY WIFE BACK AFTER SHE LEFT ME FOR OVER 2 YEARS WITH MY 7 YEARS OLD SON JERRY,I HAVE APPLIED TO 7 DIFFERENT SPELL CASTER HERE AND ALL TO NO AVAIL THEY ALL ASK FOR SAME THING SEND YOUR NAME YOUR EX NAME ADDRESS AND PICTURE PHONE NUMBER ETC WHICH I DID OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND MOST OF THEM WERE FROM WEST AFRICA UNTIL I SAW A POST ABOUT MAMA ANITA SPELL AND I DECIDED TO GAVE HER MY LAST TRAIL.SHE ASK ME FOUR THINGS MY REAL NAME,MY EX AND MY EX MOTHER NAME AND $380 AND SAID MY EX WILL COME BACK IN 24HOURS, I HAVE PAID OVER $3000 ON SPELL CASTING AND COURIER AND NOTHING HAVE WORK FOR ME AFTER 3 DAYS I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE LOST SO FAR SO I SAID LET ME GIVE HER A TRY SO I CALLED HER AGAIN AND SEND MY REAL NAME,MY EX AND MY EX MOTHER NAME AND THE $380 BECAUSE I SWEAR IT WAS MY LAST TRY SO I WAS WAITING AS SHE TOLD ME TO WAIT TILL NEXT DAY AND I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT BECAUSE I REALLY LOVE MY WIFE AND WANT HER BACK AT 9PMTHAT DAY I SAW MY WIFE ON LINE ON FACE BOOK AND SHE SAID HI AT FIRST I WAS SHOCK BECAUSE SHE NEVER TALK WITH ME FOR THE PAST A YEAR AND 9 MONTH NOW I DID NOT REPLY AGAIN SHE SAID ARE YOU THERE? I QUICKLY REPLY YES AND SHE SAID CAN WE SEE TOMORROW I SAID YES AND SHE WENT OFF-LINE I WAS CONFUSED I TRY TO CHAT HER AGAIN BUT SHE WAS NO MORE ON LINE I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT AS I WAS WONDERING WHAT SHE IS GOING TO SAY, BY 7.AM THE NEXT MORNING SHE GAVE ME A MISS CALL I DECIDED NOT TO CALL BACK AS I WAS STILL ON SHOCK AGAIN SHE CALL AND I PICK SHE SAID CAN WE SEE AFTER WORK TODAY I SAID YES SO SHE END THE CALL IMMEDIATELY I GOT OFF WORK SHE CALL ME AND WE MEET AND NOW WE ARE BACK AGAIN I CALL MAMA ANITA THE NEXT DAY THANKING HER FOR WHAT SHE HAS DONE IN FACT I STILL CALL HER AND THANK HER AS MY LIFE WAS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT MY WIFE PLEASE BE CAREFUL HERE I HAVE BEEN SCAM THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IF YOU WANT A TRUE LOVE SPELL THEN CONTACT MAMA ANITA (mamaanita.lovespellsolution@gmail.com) or mama.anitaspellcraft@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete