Hillary Clinton, Public and Private (selections from the unredacted transcript)
Sawyer: Let’s talk about your family’s income after the two of you left the White House. Your husband has been paid more than $100 million to give speeches, and you’ve received two multimillion dollar book advances, as well as being paid $200,000 per speech. Does this seem . . . I’m searching for the right word here . . .
Clinton: Wrong?
Sawyer: Well not wrong, exactly, and of course certainly not illegal, but some might say it’s unseemly for public officials to profit from their time in office in this way.
Clinton: No, I’m pretty much going to go with wrong. It’s wrong, first, because it’s completely obscene that we have an economic system in which some people “earn” one thousand or ten thousand times as much income as other people. Second, while this would be wrong under any circumstances, it’s especially wrong because the people who earn $12,000 per year are usually doing something that has obvious social value, like taking care of children, or cooking food, or cleaning things that need cleaning, while the people making $12,000,000 or $120,000,000,000 per year are usually doing things like speculating in the financial markets, or giving banal speeches to people who speculate in financial markets — two activities that have no apparent social value whatsoever.
Or, to choose another example at random, perhaps they’re doing interviews like this one, in which a celebrity journalist who is paid $12,000,000 per year asks a celebrity politician questions written by someone else about the celebrity politician’s basically fake “book” — also written by someone else, needless to say.
Sawyer: This all sounds very radical, and not appropriate for a network audience. Why do you take the money if you feel this way?
Clinton: I don’t know — why do you take the money? Oh wait, I think I know the answer to my own question: because it’s there! But “because it’s there” doesn’t mean that it’s right that it’s there. It shouldn’t be “there” in the first place. Or if it’s going to be there, 70% or 80% of it should go to the government, just like back when the American Communist Party managed to get Dwight Eisenhower elected president.
Sawyer: Doesn’t saying things like this open you to charges of hypocrisy?
Clinton: Diane, we’re both part of the same hypocrisy.
Some people have to play their little games…
I like the part about how they were in debt after their time in the white house. Apparently the $200K salary and $50K expense account just wasn’t enough.
Wasn’t enough to cover their lawyer fees after the Republicans got through with them.
Yeah, their lawyers billed millions of dollars, IIRC
Anyone else read “billed” as “bled”?
A bit unfair to lawyers (they were doing their jobs, and well), but not entirely inaccurate …
Ah, I stand corrected. I read another article and it mentioned the legal fees. The first article I read only mentioned mortgages for houses and Chelsea’s education.
I believe the post-Presidential Senatorial domicile was the first house they’d ever owned.
Legal fees, expensive education, moving costs, getting a new home, and a bunch of other things that come with no longer being President.
Someone’s gonna take this as gospel…
Someone already does.
I liked with two extreme right-wingers – one of whom was genuinely dangerous – for a year in college.
The dangerous one believed, in the 1990s, that Dwight Eisenhower was, indeed, a conscious agent to international communism. After all, he refused to ally with some Nazi allies/anti-Soviet partisans in the immediate aftermath of World War II. What else could possibly explain this reluctance?
I have read that Eisenhower was jewish. That would explain it. Not that it’s true, but it would.
Whoa, I’ve never heard this one before. Let me get this straight: MLK was actually a conservative, but the guy who authorized overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran because a foreign oil company with a financial stake told him lies about Soviet agents was a full-blown red?
Tricky devils, aren’t they?
Well you do have to admit that there’s very little that the actual Soviets did to our long-term foreign policy as disastrous as what Ike and the Brits did with Iran. Of course by that logic W would have been a secret al Qaeda plant. Make of that as you will.
Greatest post ever.
Bar none.
(Acknowledgement to William Floyd)
at a minimum, it’s brilliant, with not a wasted word.
Since the last one Campos did like this. (which was what? I can’t remember).
Nice to remember Floyd.
After reading it I felt, like after some episodes of West Wing, as if I had just woken up from a dream and wished for a brief moment I lived in that world instead.
Well, THAT won’t exactly endear her to any Libertarians or Conservatives!
But we
moochers, takers, losers, and parasitespeople who are less fortunate than some others, are glad that she realizes that, since you can’t take it with you when you go, and you shouldn’t be allowed to give it to the REAL moochers, takers, and parasites – the children of the uber-rich, who did nothing at all except be fortunate members of “The Lucky Sperm Met a Lucky Egg Club,” that too many people make FAR too much money for what they do, and what they bring to the table.I await the typical response @Anonymous – and his brand of vindictive psychopathy, calling me every single name in the book.
“I await the typical response @Anonymous – and his brand of vindictive psychopathy, calling me every single name in the book.”
I wouldn’t take it personally, I suspect he treats everyone that way, explaining why he/she/it spends lots of time in mom’s basement.
Yeah, but there are a couple of commenters he really goes after in particular, and c u n d is one of them.
It’s because c u n d at some point or another told about his situation, meaning that the vicious little shit things it can be more accurate and thus hurtful in attacking him. Whether or not it actually “believes” its shit–I’m on the fence–it’s still quite the nasty piece of work.
I assume (since you don’t say, and since I can’t find a transcript, and because what I can find doesn’t quite match this) that you’ve written what it would be awesome for her to say, and what there’s no way in hell she’d ever say.
D’OH!
Yeah, I think I just realized that same thing as soon as I hit “Submit Comment.”
I just caught myself!
Damnit, I swallowed the thing hook, line and sinker. Thought it was unbelievably awesome but apparently without thinking enough about what “unbelievable” actually means.
So embarrassed.
On the other hand, she would – and did – say, “Henry Kissinger is a friend of mine.” 7:48 mark in the interview that NPR did with her that was on Morning Edition today.
This was literally seconds after she had said of the Bushies, “We were viewed as being untrustworthy, as violating our moral rules and values.” (7:25 mark, same link.)
Kinda undercuts her moral authority to condemn one set of war criminals for being immoral and untrustworthy, when she proceeds to cozy up to another, even worse, war criminal.
The Daily Beast link goes to “Tehran’s Chinese Missile Man.”
Am I missing something?
I got yet another Daily Beast piece. I’m guessing the link is off, and the Daily Beast would rather send you to a random page and garner eyeballs than honestly give you the 404 error you deserve.
In any case, this link should work.
I fear that we’ll be looking as some miscalibrated irony meters downthread.
I was 3/4 of the way through it before my brain started working.
The thing is that rephrased somewhat and definitely not citing the numbers for the tax rate under Ike it would probably work just fine. It’s a crude and impolitic version of what Liz Warren successfully talked about, the need for the fortunate to give back and ensure others have the same opportunities they enjoyed.
It was Sawyer’s non-reactions that clued me in. For just one hot second, I was on board the Hillary train. Not that I won’t support her should she get the nomination, but for just a moment there, she was awesome.
You don’t think she’s awesome when she takes $400K from Goldman Sachs?
If she took $30 or 40 billion, I’d think she was wicked awesome.
I hope she takes everything from Goldman Sachs and then burns them to ashes and sows the ground with salt.
After she destroys Dimon’s apartment with a Jugs machine.
Hope? Are you thinking Clinton 2016: Populist Dove?
Hope, yes. Expect, no.
Since nobody else said it; Goldman Sachs delenda est.
I realized it was fake at Hillary suggesting “wrong.” She’s too pro at this to help out a flailing interviewer who’s launching a clumsy attack.
There is an upside to presidents being able to cash in after they leave office. It dissuades them from trying to cash in while they’re in office.
I can’t find a link, but I once read about a proposal to give multi-million dollar awards to African heads of state who peacefully and legally leave office after they lose an election, or decide not to run for another term.
As an African head of state, I will do you one better. How about I stay in office indefinitely and just take my own multi-million dollar award?
Yes, but the above plan means you can retire peacefully and enjoy your millions instead of constantly worrying about your bodyguards and when some OTHER colonel will decide it’s HIS turn to be President-for-Life-and-Father-to-a-Grateful-Nation.
Plus, with this plan you don’t have to e-mail numerous random people to inquire whether they would assist you with a large bank transfer.
This is called the Mo Ibrahim Prize. Wikipedia article here.
Thanks!
I always appreciate confirmation that I didn’t hallucinate something.
The prize exists:
http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/ibrahim-prize/
That description of the prize criteria is quite tactful.
Which is why I let someone else watch the vacuous interviewer ask the insipid pol questions about the ghostwritten book read by someone else, not me.
American politics is absolutely grand entertainment, but that doesn’t mean you have to waste time watching/reading every utterance and “incisive” commentary from the usual collection of gasbags. I mean, trying to repeal the ACA eleventy-thirty times in the House tells me a fuck of a lot more about intentions/ideology than what any of the GOP crotch-sniffers babble about on Sunday mornings to some credulous rotten-crotcher.
The only thing more fucked up than the current state of American politics is the current state of the “journalists” that cover American politics…which is what makes it such grand entertainment.
I’m curious, does anyone know if W has actually earned any speaking fees? I mean, I recall the interview where he said he was looking forward to replenishing the old coffers with sweet, sweet cash. But those fees and speeches are stupid enough when the ex-President in question is intelligent and might have something interesting to say, I can’t imagine a corporate exec actually thinking it would do his company some good to hear words of wisdom from W. I mean, can’t you get Rick Pitino for like half the price?
Speaking as somebody who works for a company that stages corporate events– trust me, Dubya is in demand. Remember that the CEOs who choose the speakers for their little shindig tend to be older, whiter and wealthier than the average American; in other words, they lean to the R and it shows.
Article in the Washington Times says he’s earned about $15M since he retired in speaking fees. Which is about $2.5M per coherent word.
I think Bill Clinton was hitting around $250K a blathering the second the second Bush was sworn in. Four speeches a month adds up.
And let’s not forget that nonprofit, the Clinton Foundation, which pays for travel, hotels, and assorted goodies; almost as if you wouldn’t need an actual income.
In fairness, or something, the CF paid for my son and 9 other kids to spend a summer in the Middle East studying Arabic.
Yes, only they’re called “speakering feeses.”
I think the whole point of paying six figures for an ex-president is as a form of conspicuous consumption. You don’t care what they have to say, you want to make the point that you have access to power.
This is so painfully, almost plausibly, awesome.
Until I got to the “Diane, we’re both part of the same hypocrisy” line, I was buying into it. But that line had a little bit too much of a Garry Trudeau ring to it. (Hell, I could probably flip through The Doonesbury Chronicles and find a strip where he put almost exactly that line in a newsmaker’s mouth.)
It’s from Godfather II.
It would be interesting to do a study of former Presidents in this regard. Anecdotally, the Clintons seem to have profited handsomely, like Reagan and the Bushes did. Carter seems to be building houses mostly. I wonder about Ford, Johnson and Ike. I would be interested to see if the Clintons were out of line with their predecessors and follower — I suspect they were.
I wonder if Obama is going to go for the very big bucks like that? I would be disappointed if he did. I am probably going to hold my nose and vote for her anyway because there is no one else, but this is a real issue.
this is a real issue
Why yes, capitalism rewards some people with vast wealth.
If only there was a way to curb such excesses.
Capitalism includes trading on your political power?
Huh. You don’t usually see right-winger acknowledge that.
Au contraire!
“But Republicans can at least be unapologetic about stuffing their pockets with Wall Street baksheesh. It’s what they do. People expect them to be on the take! (I say this as a lifelong Republican. To us, corruption is just another way of saying, “We are open for business!”)
There is; it’s even mentioned in the post (although not by name). Too bad one political party runs around screaming whenever the “T” word is mentioned…
I know Truman at least would be disgusted by the Clintons.
He took a million dollar advance for his memoirs though.
just read last night after taxes etc Truman ended up with something like $37 grand. the David McCullough biography says neither he nor his brother and sister really had anything til they sold the family farm to developers in the late 50s
comical thing: in the late 40s, he pulled strings to get Eisenhower a good tax deal as a non professional author, and Ike ended up with something in the neighborhood of $600K
(this comes from a book about the relationship between T and E and how they managed the post WW2 years)
Johnson died quickly out of office but was rich by the time he entered the white house via various deals including Lady Bird’s ownership of radio and TV station in Austin.
No idea about Ford or Ike.
Garry Wills on the Checkers speech:
This might help
http://247wallst.com/banking-finance/2010/05/17/the-net-worth-of-the-american-presidents-washington-to-obama/5/
Another way to look at this which is a bit more damning is to consider the Clintons collectively — except in the last year or so, they have never been out of office. When Bill has been paid millions for speaking, Hillary was always a Senator of a Secretary of State, which creates real conflicts of interest. There are a treasure trove of those things for repubs to go after. It is not like the usual former office holder just cashing in on fame.
Any other Dem candidates out there?
Like what?
You’re going to have to flesh that out a bit more. Obviously the spouse of a government official making money in the private sector isn’t an inherent conflict of interest, that would be ridiculous. So point to specific groups Bill received money from during Clinton’s time as a Senator (frankly I’d be more concerned about her time as a legislator) or fuck right off with your thinly-veiled concern trolling.
I don’t know what groups Bill received money from. I am just saying with that much money made from that many speeches over that many years, there must be some suspect group in there. Or some groups that can sound suspect anyway.
My real issue is — when do you have enough money? I mean, if your family has, say $50 million, why don’t you just start giving speeches for free if you want to give speeches? Then you can go out to whomever you really way to speak to rather than some business group that pays you the most. You have enough to live on for the rest of your life, and enough for Chelsea for the rest of her life. It is not like Hillary and Bill are going to spend their own money on the campaign, she is going to ask for money like every other pol does.
Okay, what’s the real real issue then?
Rich people are morally vicious?
I would rate the status of rich people as follows:
1. Rich people who built a company with a useful product.
2. Rich people who were a sports star or movie star.
3. Rich people who inherited their money.
4. Rich people who traded off their public office legally.
5. Rich people who built a company with a useless or harmful product.
6. Rich people who stole their money or traded off their public office illegally.
So the Clinton’s would fall under number 4 on my scale of status of rich people, but kind of an extreme example of that.
Hillary’s interview reminded me of the slick Willy days. It is just one of those over practiced, insincere answers like Bill would make like they thought they were the smartest in the room. Obama has been refreshingly honest, and Dubya lied but was probably too stupid to know he was lying. The Clinton thing is different and rubs me the wrong way, even though I will end up voting for her because there is no one else, really, on either side.
Of course, a large proportion of category #3 are rich people who inherited their money from rich people who stole it or traded off their public office illegally. These might belong lower on the list.
Once laundered through death all money is clean.
No company was built by one person. You’re buying into the myth of the job creator.
Any leader that thinks he’s responsible for the accomplishments of the entire team is just as delusional as the rooster who thinks he’s responsible for the sunrise, and this is no less true in industry than in the military or any other domain of leadership.
Don’t let an economic system that encourages leaders to rob the other 99% of the co-builders of the company fool you into thinking that they really did build that.
(Similar remarks apply to sports and movie stars — they are only the visible parts of huge collaborative enterprises without which the sports team/movie wouldn’t even exist, let alone you having an opportunity to watch it. Most of the work goes on behind the scenes — literally, in the case of entertainment.)
In most small companies, the person in charge is often making a heavy financial investment, putting personal bankruptcy and the investment of loved ones on the line. I have no problem with people in that position receiving greater composition to make up for that added risk.
That doesn’t apply to publicly traded corporations where the CEO is uniquely protected from the consequences of their decisions, and lacks the personal financial stake in the company.
You missed “Rich people who got their money by playing funny rigged games with the market with other people’s money.”
Also “Rich people who got their money by becoming CEO of a corporation that was healthy and sucking all of the money out of it until it was a shell of its former self by the time they bailed with their golden parachute.”
And, frankly, you have 3 and 4 reversed. Inheriting money is worse than doing a good job as a politician and legally turning that good job into a living after you leave office. Rich people who inherited their wealth are parasites on the economy and should not be lauded for their good fortune of choosing the right family to be born into.
1. Rich people who built a company with a useful product.
Well, US Steel made useful products, but some people have problems with the way they treated their employees.
Others might note that extracting oil to run Americas growing industrial society is a useful thing, but again, have problems with the way they destroyed any other business or person in their way. (Standard Oil in 1900, no global warming necessary.)
“you can never be too rich or too thin.”
“My real issue is — when do you have enough money?”
of course, if marginal tax rates were up where they should be, becoming grotesquely, obscenely rich would take a lot longer.
It wouldn’t even really be possible — you wouldn’t live long enough, and your offspring would split up your fortune, regress to the mean, or both.
In all seriousness, this stuff is probably more corrosive and corrupting in the lower echelons of politics, e.g., Anthony Wiener who found that he was good at capitalism after he became a “consultant” after he left congress.
A president knows that they don’t have to ever run for anything again and will at the very least, get a book advance and a pension. These lower level local hacks, they still have to earn a living after they screw up and they always want to get back in the game, so you’ll have a revolving door with local offices and local law firms and other businesses.
One thing I always liked about the Bill Clinton presidency was that when he came into office the $200K salary was the highest-paying job he ever had and by quite a bit at that.
Hillary was the major breadwinner for much of their time in Arkansas. Clinton had failings but he wasn’t notorious for cupidity.
One of Hillary’s Arkansas frustrations, along with men yelling at her that her name wasn’t Rodham, was that the family couldn’t even have a swimming pool lest they look snooty.
So, Paul, is this a real interview? On TV and all?
Because it doesn’t seem very real to me. At all.
One might almost think you were aware of all internet traditions . ..
A couple, at least. ;-)
But it was just so… flatly presented. If there had just been a link, not that I would have clicked it…
Well done, tho.
Wow. I think I am going to like her. She is a badass.
You will, yes. But this is fake. Jeez.
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