Comments on: Bill Clinton Made Millions Overseas

By: tom p

tom p — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:28:38 +0000

heh... sometime in the past year Alberto Gonzales got $10K (maybe more) from Washington University Law School for a half hr...

By: Maggie Mama

Maggie Mama — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:05:17 +0000

Clinton was hitting up the American taxpayer big time for things like his phone bill. 41 and Carter had telephone bills in the $17-19,000. range.

But Clinton's bill was $79,000. for one year. He was obviously calling all his overseas friends.

Absolutely no oversight regarding the usage of phones: is he raising money for his library, for the Clinton Foundation, for his speaking tours, or is he doing "normal" former president business?

We pay, Clinton plays.

By: markm

markm — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:25:09 +0000

Heh...hadda re-read the title. I first read it as 'laid' millions.

By: steve s

steve s — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:37:53 +0000

Off-topic: Yeah, I said a couple times that James Joyner should be the new conservative guy at the NYT. I thought I'd flesh that out a bit. The modern conservative movement talks to the echo chamber. When Hannity/Hewitt/Malkin etc write a column full of stupid lies, it's just to the base. "Obama is a muslim! Obama loves terrorists!" etc. You could only believe that if you're ~~extremely stupid~~ the GOP base. Joyner's articles, on the other hand, are written to the community of intelligent people who think about things. That's why he mentions, and argues against, contrary voices like Yglesias, Drum, etc. He's trying to engage people in an intelligent argument. It's this engagement with the intelligentsia that is very important for effective communication and the possibility of persuasion. If you just talk to the echo chamber, you're preaching to the choir, and accomplishing little. The willingness to take on difficult challenges and engage with thinking people is what makes Joyner valuable. Keep it up Jimmy.

By: steve s

steve s — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:31:53 +0000

And I thought Malcolm Gladwell was overpaid at $40,000 a speech! (I saw him at Duke, btw. Good speech (It was about Blink), but I don't know if it was worth 40 large) Yeah, it does help to compare Hollywood Ronald Reagan's $2 million speech. But in any case, I can't begrudge them that. As long as it wasn't quid pro quo. If Al Qaeda offered me $2 million to give a speech on why America is The Devil I would probably take it. And it would be an easy speech to write--I'd just steal Rush Limbaugh and John Boner's lines about how I wanted America to fail.

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:35:30 +0000

I'm pretty sure that Clinton got a $500K speaker's fee for talking at the Jeddah Economic Forum in 2002 (possibly 03).

Saudis thought his speech pandering and concluded that it was an enormous waste of money.

By: Franklin

Franklin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:47:08 +0000

While he's busy closing the trade deficit all by himself, it also means that (surprise, surprise) the Clintons have a lot of conflicts of interest between them.

By: Scott Swank

Scott Swank — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:38:51 +0000

Compare that with Reagan's $2 million from Fujisankei back in 1989 for perspective.

By: odograph

odograph — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:28:28 +0000

Crimeny. I have a friend who was at that speech (NADA, pictured). He enjoyed the heck out of it, especially the half given by George Herbert Walker Bush. (Clinton's first line was that he couldn't get away telling the kind of [dirty] jokes GHWB can do. That got as big a laugh as the GHWB jokes.)

Way to tilt the reporting.

FWIW, my friend was also inspired by the genuine friendship between the two ex-Presidents.