Questions to Matt Re: Clinton as Secretary of State
By Rob Anderson - Nov 20th, 2008 at 11:59 amYesterday, Matt argued that Bill Clinton’s post-presidency work–”running around the world, giving paid speeches to foreign governments and corporations in combination with his fundraising for the Clinton Global Initiative”–should disqualify Hillary from becoming our next secretary of state. He argued that “unless Clinton basically ceases his work with CGI, or at least the fundraising aspect, and promises to clear all of his speeches and events with the State Department, then Hillary being appointed Secretary of State should be out of the question.”
I have two questions for you, Matt:
First, isn’t that Bill has already agreed to do? (”In discussions over the last few days, Mr. Clinton has agreed to disclose some major donors to his charitable foundation and to subject his future foundation activities and paid speeches to review by the White House counsel’s office and the State Department ethics office, according to Democrats close to the negotiations. He would step back from day-to-day responsibility involving the William J. Clinton Foundation and alert the State Department to speaking plans and new income sources.”) Or does this not meet your standards?
And second, if, in your mind, Hillary’s marriage to Bill disqualifies her from becoming secretary of state, I have to assume you believed she should have been disqualified from running for the presidency. Or is this different?
UPDATE: Matt responds in the comments.
Rob, your first point is totally valid. I actually wrote the post before that spate of articles went up. But yes, if Clinton really did relinquish day to day fundraising and operation of the CGI and the Clinton foundation, that would probably be OK.
As for your second point. Yeah, now that I’ve thought about it, had Clinton continued to run the CGI as he is while Hillary was president, that would be inappropriate for all the same reasons. If not more so. I should also note that it’s not her marriage to Bill that’s the problem, but the fact that Bill has spent the last eight years running around the world, raising millions of dollars form all sorts of shady people and getting paid obscene amounts by similar characters for basically doing nothing.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:11 pm