Drudge reporting that the Clintons reported $109M in income (OK--from 2000-2007, since leaving the White House). I guess Bubba's been doing a lot of speaking. That $5M that Hillary donated to her campaign was but a drop in the bucket (if this is true).
I'm just trying to figure out where it all comes from. They both wrote books, Bill gets lots of money to speak. I guess in 7 years that's a bit more swallowable than in 1 year, but wow--it pays to be a politician!
shaolin_Z
The interesting question is, where does that money come from?
Shakka
Details on Drudge show about half of it was from Bill's speeches, another $29M from Bill's book and only about $10.5M from Hillary's book. In other words, it comes from fools that care what they have to say.
shaolin_Z
quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Details on Drudge show about half of it was from Bill's speeches, another $29M from Bill's book and only about $10.5M from Hillary's book. In other words, it comes from fools that care what they have to say.
Do you have any figures on sale statistics by any chance? That's a load of money from book sales, especially for people who're obviously not professional writers.
josh4
quote:
Originally posted by Shakka
Details on Drudge show about half of it was from Bill's speeches, another $29M from Bill's book and only about $10.5M from Hillary's book. In other words, it comes from fools that care what they have to say.
I'm not all that impressed. Do you suppose this sort of income would be any different from other former Presidents shortly after leaving office? It pays to be King. Though I agree it does show, with all the highlighting of Obama's fundraising, Clinton does have access to fairly large coffers even if most of hers is personal.
Shakka
quote:
Originally posted by josh4
I'm not all that impressed. Do you suppose this sort of income would be any different from other former Presidents shortly after leaving office? It pays to be King.
I dunno. You got any stats for comparison? I know Bush 41 works or worked for Carlyle so he no doubt made a ton (certainly not $55M from speaking that I'm aware of). I'm really not sure because I can't say I've ever seen anything on any other ex-presidents. Now if it were $109M in 1 year...
I am curious how this will sit with Hillary's blue-collar base. They might be prone to a little wealth envy.
josh4
That was easy. Thank you Google!
quote:
And for My Second Act, I’ll Make Some Money
Published: September 9, 2007
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Correction Appended
A NEW book out last week reported that President Bush wants to hop on the lecture circuit when he leaves office in 2009 — “replenish the ol’ coffers,” as he put it in Robert Draper’s account of his presidency, “Dead Certain.”
“I don’t know what my dad gets,” the president told Mr. Draper. “But it’s more than 50, 75” thousand dollars a speech. He added, “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
In recent years, virtually every president has left office and parlayed his experience into handsome fees. Criticism has followed.
Ronald Reagan was excoriated for taking $2 million for two speeches in Japan, at a time when the United States was locked in economic battle with his hosts; George H. W. Bush’s association with the Carlyle Group was held up to ridicule in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and Bill Clinton has been lambasted for extracting eye-popping fees, sometimes $350,000 a speech.
There was no exception for the current president, with critics accusing him — in advance — of venality, greed and capitalizing on his presidency in a time of war.
In the book, Mr. Bush did not really explain his interest in more money. His assets are estimated at between $8 million and $20 million (and his daughters are out of college). Moreover, since the 1950s, when it was clear that Harry Truman could not afford even an office staff, the federal government has taken care of former presidents. Mr. Bush will receive an annual pension of $186,000, travel funds, mailing privileges, Secret Service protection, office space, staff, stationery and transition expenses.
“These are not people who are put out on the street destitute,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates tighter campaign finance rules.
And yet, what is an ex-president to do with the rest of his life? They are now generally leaving office at a younger age than their predecessors and living longer. Mr. Bush will be 62 when he clears out; Bill Clinton was 54. Their youth makes it unrealistic to expect them to retire and vanish.
“Presidents have always been able to profit from their prominence,” said Brian Flanagan, assistant director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Sometimes this surprises people. “We’ve gotten to know our presidents through their careers in public service,” he said. “So people can feel betrayed or confused when they see a former president in a different light, cashing in on their celebrity. You see athletes doing it and movie stars. It’s hard to put a president in the same category.”
Mr. Bush has been vague about his post-presidential plans. He mentioned having “a nice place in Dallas” and setting up a Freedom Institute. Otherwise, he told Mr. Draper, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”
Mr. Bush is not the first to face a blank slate after serving in the most important job in the world. Franklin Pierce, who left office at 52 in 1857, found post-presidential life a big drag. “After the White House,” he lamented, “what is there to do but drink?” He died at 64.
Mr. Pierce aside, most former presidents have been active one way or another. But in the early days of the republic, they re-emerged in public roles often with the incumbent’s blessing. George Washington, who left office at 65, retired to Mount Vernon but was recalled to command the United States Army when war with France seemed imminent.
“Washington was the model for many years,” said Mark K. Updegrove, author of “Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House.” “You were useful to the degree to which the incumbent could use you, as an emissary, a diplomat, an adviser.”
Those who returned to public service included John Quincy Adams, who went on to serve in the House of Representatives. Andrew Johnson was appointed to the Senate. William Howard Taft finally got the job he wanted, as chief justice of the United States.
But the modern post-presidency has been marked by a new kind of activism, Mr. Updegrove said. It often involves rehabilitating one’s image and making money, and sometimes those have been one and the same.
Richard Nixon spent his early post-Watergate years in exile. Under the 1958 Former President’s Act, a president would forfeit his pension if he were impeached and convicted; Nixon avoided that fate by resigning. In addition, he was paid $600,000 for his interviews with David Frost and $2.3 million for his memoirs.
Gerald R. Ford was the first ex-president to serve on corporate boards. But Mr. Clinton has leveraged his presidency to a greater extent than any other former chief executive, making at least $40 million in speaking fees since leaving the White House in 2001.
He has, however, like other presidents, devoted much of his time — and much of his speaking income — to global charities. He and the first President Bush have joined forces for relief for victims of the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Former President Jimmy Carter has devoted himself to numerous causes and won the Nobel Prize.
Still, one area of concern about former presidents involves fund-raising for their libraries, which they are allowed to do while in office. Donors don’t even have to be disclosed, though Congress is considering a measure to change that, applying to sitting presidents and for four years after they leave office. Still, the practice has become more complicated with a former president whose son is in the Oval Office now and another whose wife could be soon.
“Retirement has usually meant riding off into the sunset,” said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. “But now, ex-presidents are enormously influential, especially if they are succeeded by their children or their spouses.”
Apart from that measure, the public has not demanded restrictions on former presidents, perhaps because they understand the sacrifices made while in office. The toll is evident in before and after pictures. “It’s an exhausting office, and a lot of presidents don’t survive long after they leave,” said Mr. Flanagan, the historian. “You think, well, they’ve earned the opportunity to go out there and earn a little money.”
Correction: September 16, 2007
An article last Sunday about the employment of former presidents after leaving the White House misstated the circumstances under which a president would lose his pension. Only a president who was impeached and convicted — not merely impeached — would forfeit his pension and related benefits. The article also misstated the title of the chief justice. He is chief justice of the United States — not of the Supreme Court. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/w...&pagewanted=all
This can put it in perspective for us a bit. Hardly new news, as this article in 2007 reports $40 mil from speaking. When Pres Clinton left office his approvals weren't terrible. The economy was also doing really well (Bush entered with a surplus). Lets also consider the mentality of the Clintons, we know they do this sort of thing very well. Theres also two of them, its a high profile relationship and the accomplishments of one reflect on the other. So yeah, I'm not all that impressed they've been doing so well.
DJ Shibby
quote:
Originally posted by shaolin_Z
The interesting question is, where does that money come from?
It comes from having been in power. Control of the "Free World" has its long term perks, especially if you make the right "friends" while you have the opportunity.
MisterOpus1
I'm no fan of the Clinton's either (most of you know that), but there's been some pretty significant news stories out this week pertaining to the Yoo memorandum, having this Bush Administration declaring that the 4th Amendment somehow doesn't apply to "domestic military operations," or having our AG Mukasey make an outrageous bull lie with tears in his eyes about an event leading up to 9/11 while also making outright lies about our current surveillance laws and ensuing lawsuits. And yet this is the top of the news because that loving unbiased news leader, Matt Drudge, pretty much says so. I tend to wonder how many mainstream media folks have Drudge's site as a bookmark.
Anyway, just a bit of perspective from Greenwald:
quote:
One other point to note about all of this is that these fixations are as skewed as they are vapid. Barack Obama is an exotic elitist freak because he went to Harvard Law School and made $1 million from his book. Hillary Clinton can't possibly have any connection to the Regular Folk because her husband, who grew up dirt poor, became quite wealthy after being President. John Kerry was completely removed from the concerns of the Regular People because his second wife was rich.
By contrast, George W. Bush was a down-home, salt-of-the-earth Man of the People despite being the grandson of a U.S. Senator, the son of a President (who greatly magnified his riches in his post-presidency), and the by-product of an extremely wealthy, coddled life. Ronald Reagan was pure Americana despite spending most of his adult life as a very wealthy Hollywood actor (and converting his post-presidency into far greater riches still). And John McCain is as Regular a Guy as it gets, even though he dumped his first wife (the mother of his three children) after she was disfigured and disabled by a near-fatal car accident so that he could marry his much younger, much prettier, and extremely wealthy heiress-mistress, whose family riches then launched his political career and sustained a life of luxury for almost three decades (that's how McCain's rustic "Sedona cabin" -- i.e., his sprawling compound -- came to be).
It would be bad enough if our political press were obsessed with such trivialities. The fact that they do so in such a Republican-leader-worshiping manner makes it only that much worse, particularly given that it's this dynamic, more than anything else, that determines the outcome of our elections.
As a sidenote, gosh, that McCain guy really is a pinnacle of "moral values," ain't he?
Lebezniatnikov
I used to book speakers and looked into Bill - he charges $125,000 an hour. If you think about it, he could only give 50 lectures a year and make $10-15 million. Giuliani wasn't even President and he's already charging $110,000 an hour. If you want to make a lot of money, do something notable and go on the lecture circuit to talk about it.
josh4
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
I used to book speakers and looked into Bill - he charges $125,000 an hour. If you think about it, he could only give 50 lectures a year and make $10-15 million. Giuliani wasn't even President and he's already charging $110,000 an hour. If you want to make a lot of money, do something notable and go on the lecture circuit to talk about it.
You're talking about Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. I doubt they got where they did through being motivated by the potential speaking income.
Shakka
I wonder if she has been merely "misspeaking" again?
April 5, 2008
Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.
The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.
“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.
Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.
A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”
The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.
Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.
As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront.
“I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.”
Indeed, saying that the story haunted her, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly offered it as a dire example of a broken health care system. At one March rally in Wyoming, for instance, she referred to Ms. Bachtel, a 35-year-old who managed a Pizza Hut, as a young, uninsured minimum-wage worker, saying, “It hurts me that in our country, as rich and good of a country as we are, this young woman and her baby died because she couldn’t come up with $100 to see the doctor.”
Mrs. Clinton does not name Ms. Bachtel or the hospital in her speeches. As she tells it, the woman was turned away twice by a local hospital when she was experiencing difficulty with her pregnancy. “The hospital said, ‘Well, you don’t have insurance.’ She said, ‘No, I don’t.’ They said, ‘Well, we can’t see you until you give $100.’ She said, ‘Where am I going to get $100?’
“The next time she came back to the hospital, she came in an ambulance,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “She was in distress. The doctors and the nurses worked on her and couldn’t save the baby.”
Since Ms. Bachtel’s baby died at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the story implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning her away, said Ms. Weiss, the spokeswoman for O’Bleness Memorial said. Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Ms. Weiss said.
The hospital would not provide details about the woman’s case, citing privacy concerns; she died two weeks after the stillbirth at a medical center in Columbus.
“We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”
Although Mrs. Clinton has told the story repeatedly, it first came to the attention of the hospital after The Washington Post cited it as a staple of her stump speeches on Thursday. That brought it to the attention of The Daily Sentinel in Pomeroy, Ohio, which published an article on Friday.
Neither paper named the hospital or challenged Mrs. Clinton’s account.
I wonder if Hillary would've given her $100? Oh wait, it didn't matter--Trina did have insurance and wasn't turned away, unless you believe in some conspiracy by the hospital, which would be highly unlikely given all of the documentation involved in the process.
And of course, nobody would ever mention the irresponsibility of getting pregnant when you lack the wherewithal to raise a child. We only have victims in our society. Poor choices have should not have consequences.
