Yes, I KNEW I’d seen this damn movie before! Instapundit links to this article, and writes:
SHE HSU’D HAVE KNOWN BETTER”: “Hillary Clinton claims ignorance over Norman Hsu’s dirty money. But she was right in the middle of a nearly identical fundraising scandal a decade ago. In fact, she was briefed about the prior scandal by an aide who’s advising her today.”
From the editorial:
Rewind to 1996, when Hillary headed her husband’s legal defense fund during his re-election bid.
On April 4 of that year, she received a damage-control briefing from fund trustees and a top White House aide about more than $600,000 in questionable donations bundled by Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, a Chinese bagman who ran a restaurant in Little Rock, Ark.
The largest chunk of the haul — $463,000 — raised flags among fund trustees, because it was delivered by Trie in two manila envelopes stuffed full of sequentially numbered money orders from different parts of the country. All bore the same handwriting.
It was agreed at the meeting that the the dirty cash would be kept secret until after the election — and even then, the names of donors would never be disclosed. It was also agreed donors would be free to re-send any returned money.
[...]
The smoking gun came in the form of handwritten notes taken by deputy White House chief of staff Harold Ickes.
“Charlie Trie — Money orders — Don’t report names if $ are returned,” Ickes wrote. “Could return all $ & ask people to resend it if they want.”
Then this: “BC/HRC to put it out of his mind and wait until after the election.” BC stands for Bill Clinton, HRC for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ickes cited “HRC” several other times in his notes.
If this sounds like deja vu, it is.
Hillary’s presidential campaign knew since at least June that there were serious questions about China-born Hsu, her own top fundraiser now behind bars.
Yet she agreed to return the $860,000 he bundled for her from mostly Asian donors only after the scandal broke in the press. Even so, she’s declined to publicly identify the 260 donors, and may ask for some of the funds back.
Now as then, Ickes is involved, this time as an adviser to her campaign. And the same guy who courted all the shady Asian donors in last decade’s Clinton campaigns is heading Hillary’s fundraising now. His name: Terry McAuliffe…
Hillary claims she had no reason to vet big Asian donors to her presidential campaign, no reason to be suspicious of them. She suggests critics who think she should have been more suspect are racist.
[...]
But the Ickes notes clearly show Hillary had every reason to check out Hsu, with whom she and Bill snapped photos and whom she let fete her campaign manager in all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas.
[...]
She should have known better than to look the other way as he raised more money for her than anybody.
For crying out loud. Ghostbusters II was one of the worst sequels ever made, and what made it awful was the fact that the filmmakers had NO new ideas; they essentially re-shot the same movie they’d made first time, but without the glibness, the fun or the adventure…without the energy. They just switched Mr. Sta-Puff to Miss Liberty.
Hillary’s whole presidential campaign is beginning to feel the same way - like a dreary sequel with one character change, put together for no discernible reason, other than a cynical expectation that the public will buy again what it has bought before. And because the marketing will reap a fortune.
And sadly, who knows…they may just be right.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Latest poll on http://www.realclearpolitics.com …
Democratic nomination:
Clinton - 42.7 %
Obama - 23.3%
followed by a host of others.
Take away the others and make it just those two, Clinton’s lead climbs dramatically.
I don’t quite understand it. She has all these problems, yet her ratings just keep climbing.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Brian, there is really no mystery, here. She has the unlimited goodwill of the press who are there to shine her up, throw softballs, bury any story (past or present) that doesn’t help and lob spitballs at any and all opposition. When you have an adoring press behind you, your mythology is assured. When you own the press, you can pretty much dance your way into power. And more people than you suspect never read beyond the glowing headlines or listen beyond the gushing tones.
Let’s be clear, you’re reading this stuff on blogs and in small papers like the IBD. You’re not reading it in Newsweek or the NY Times…you’re not seeing it covered wall-to-wall on CNN and the networks. No one else gets this sort of protection and insulation by the mainstream media. If these stories were about Rudy or Mitt, you’d never hear the end of it, the reporters would be hounding them like jackals.
September 19th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Double deja vu…
Hillarycare 2.0. Details at Opinion JournalClinton fundraising scandals: A bad sequel gets worse. Anchoress…
September 19th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Dear Anchoress,
I’m afraid I must disagree with your comment #2.
Why? Because if it were true that “When you own the press, you can pretty much dance your way into power. And more people than you suspect never read beyond the glowing headlines or listen beyond the gushing tones.”
then the list of Presidents in the past 20 years would read Carter, Mondale, Clinton,
Gore, Kerry. And Congress would have been solidly Democrat from 1994-2006.
I agree there are people who don’t read behind the headlines. But the American people have shown themselves smarter than they’re given credit for. As hard as the media have worked to put lipsticks on pigs, a lot of times the American people have seen through to the fact that they are, in fact, pigs.
No, I think Hillary is the front-runner for five reasons:
1) Her husband. The belief that she can bring back the “good ol’ days” of the 90s.
2) Her existence on the national level for 10+ years.
3) Her ability to run an extremely effective organization, and her own competence.
4) The fact that she’s mean. Obama promises a “new tone”, but in my view the Moveon types don’t want a “new tone” — they want somebody who will belt the Republicans in the chops. They want a son-of-a-****, and Hillary can play that role.
5) Her gender. Spoke with a college-age woman last month, and she said “I’m voting for Hillary because she’s a woman”. Point blank. That was the only question on her agenda.
That’s the silliest reason I can think of to vote for someone — I don’t vote for candidates because of their genitalia — but evidently there are people who do.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:14 am
All of that may be true, Brian, but in 40 years of watching news I have never seen the press as overt and shameless as they are in their promotion of Mrs. Clinton. The press of today is not the press of twenty or even ten years ago. They are - finally - utterly owned by someone.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:56 pm
[...] Hsu, Ickes, Clinton - a bad sequel gets worse [...]