(2008-06-03) Books And Article Vs Bill Clinton

Todd Purdum (husband of DeeDeeMyers) wrote an article critical about Bill Clinton.

• None of these wisps of smoke have produced a public fire. But four former Clinton aides told me that, about 18 months ago, one of the president's former assistants, who still advises him on political matters, had heard so many complaints about such reports from Clinton supporters around the country that he felt compelled to try to conduct what one of these aides called an "intervention," because, the aide believed, "Clinton was apparently seeing a lot of women on the road."

• But Clinton's business relationship with Ron Burkle is far and away his largest source of income after books and speeches: $15.4 million between 2003 and 2007, according to the Clintons' recently released tax returns. That amounts to about 20 percent of all the income that Clinton earned in those years. Until the release of the tax returns this year, Hillary Clinton's Senate financial-disclosure forms had revealed only that Clinton earned "more than $1,000" a year from his partnerships with Burkle.

  • I thought they split in December? The new article says: But in fact, one Clinton aide told me, severing the ties is complicated because putting a value on the partnerships is difficult.

• "Look, the game has changed," said Mike Mc Curry. "He ran his last national campaign in 1996, and remember, we kind of ran unopposed. It's been a while since he did that, and the way you summon people up and get them to do things has changed. All of this stuff, the blogging and the You Tubing and the way in which everything is instantaneously available: I tell you, until you get out there and are actually dealing with the consequences--having what you just said as you were walking out the door (all over the Internet), that's brand-new to him."

• It is beyond dispute that Clinton's foundation has done worthy work around the world, funneling low-cost anti-retroviral drugs to more than a million aids patients, shining the singular power of a presidential spotlight on the good work of others, and raising millions of dollars for practical programs in places much of the world's power establishment never bothers with. But it is also beyond dispute that Clinton has blended the altruistic efforts of his philanthropy with the private business interests of some of his biggest donors in ways that are surpassingly sloppy, if not unseemly, for any former president. A case in point is Clinton's relationship with Ukraine's Victor Pinchuk, a billionaire and philanthropist who has donated millions to the ex-president's foundation. According to Newsweek, in 2007, at a Pinchuk-sponsored international conference in Yalta, Clinton wowed the crowd with a presentation on Ukraine but also sparked controversy when he was embraced by Pinchuk's father-in-law, the country's former president Leonid Kuchma. Kuchma's repressive regime has been linked by a government investigation to the 2000 murder of a dissident Ukrainian journalist.

• Even more troubling is Clinton's relationship with the Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra. This winter, a lengthy investigative report in The New York Times disclosed that, in 2005, Clinton flew to the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan on Giustra's MD-87 jet for what was billed as a philanthropic three-country tour. The two men had dinner with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has held the country in a vise-like grip for nearly two decades. At their meeting, Clinton expressed support for Nazarbayev's bid to head the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors elections and promotes democracy. That position was sharply at odds with official American foreign policy and came in the face of stinging criticism of Kazakhstan's record on human rights from many sources, including the junior senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Within two days, Giustra's company signed preliminary agreements allowing it to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan's state-owned uranium agency. And months after that the Clinton Foundation received a $31.3 million donation from Giustra that remained secret until a Giustra representative acknowledged it late last year. (Giustra has separately pledged another $100 million to the foundation.)

• It is for just such reasons that Clinton's refusal to make public the names of donors to his foundation has drawn withering fire. (Some donors--including the Saudi royal family and the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar--were made public by The New York Sun when a list of them was discovered on a public computer monitor at the opening of the Clinton library.)

Another piece from a few weeks ago identifies some of the Special Interest-s who have paid for his time. In 2002, the ex-president picked up a $300,000 check from the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China - a Beijing-backed group that favors ending Taiwan's independence from China.

The Clinton group responded with a memo.

Then Bill Clinton ranted to Mayhill Fowler about it.

Carol Felsenthal, author of a the recent Clinton In Exile, defended Purdum's piece. *Many of Purdum's charges - the business conflicts, the glitzy, inappropriate friendships, the assertion that Bill has been nothing but a drag on his wife's campaign

• are well taken; I make them in my book, and I do believe that when the history of this Hillary/Obama race for the nomination is written, Bill Clinton will be seen as one of the key reason his wife lost.*