The Clintons are like the Tudors of the Ozarks. They believe they are royalty, but they also understand that even monarchs need friends. The Clinton Foundation is the perfect vehicle for their ambition. Like the medieval Catholic Church, it blurs the lines between ideals and interests. On the one hand, it does yeoman’s work in the Church of Liberal Dogoodery, but it also provides a conduit for business interests, foreign governments, academics, activists, and journalists to gain access to the imperial court-in-waiting.
We all need and always have operating mental models, "narratives" about most everything that happens to us. Often we don't even know it. We have our political biases, tastes, liked and not liked people, places and things, sources of information and "feelings" about how things are, aren't, should and shouldn't be.
I liked the designation of Ozarkian royalty for the Clintons in the article as well as the model of the medieval Catholic Church for much of modern liberalism. Liberalism claims to be the TRUE nostrum for the masses, but somehow it is a "big church" -- it finds room for lots of wealth, graft, international bribery and kickbacks and LOTS of indulgences and forgiven sins for at least it's leadership. In fact, the Clintons vaulted from being "broke when they left the White House" (it must be true, Hillary said it) to being worth around $100 million today with just a few scraps from the left wing franchise.
In reading about the Clintons, it helps to try to understand how the leftist mind looks at them. Here you have two people that in the period since 2000 created no product or idea, did not entertain or display some great skill like that in sporting or art, nor invested or accomplished any other act that one would associate with amassing wealth, yet amassed a fortune of over $100 million and spent much more than that.
Do we really need a book such as the one discussed in the article to understand where that money came from? Don't we all know that it was transferred to them for influence, protection, favors and such? What could possibly be more obvious than that?
The interesting part to me is that unless this is really the start of some NY Times coup as the article hints at, nobody on the left really cares. In fact, I think they kind of enjoy it. My view is that this is a standard NY Times inoculation -- "they reported it", so at a minimum it is "old news". We can expect variations and combinations on the following to follow:
1). The author of the book will have done "something wrong" -- the form makes little difference. "Took money from the Koch brothers", "Published something in the past that may be untrue", "treated his ex-wife, girlfriend, dog, parakeet, etc badly" ... something.
2). SOMETHING in the book will be "wrong" -- ergo EVERYTHING in the book is wrong!
3). Since the information in the book is reported and "nothing happened", that means that "there is nothing important here" -- no story, move along.
#3 is the obvious -- we see it in great frequency with people from the left, from Whitewater, cattle futures, Travelgate, Monica, etc in the old Clinton universe to Gun Runner, IRS, Benghazi, NSA, various lost e-mails, etc today. "It was reported, nothing came of it, so move along"
If you listen to NPR, you will still get some rapt reporting on Watergate, Iran-Contra, WMDs, etc -- even W National Guard and Cheney shooting his buddy hunting. Those were all REAL -- the kind of thing that even if they did have some level of effect, OUGHT to have had WAY more! Those were hunts for REAL "bad guys doing bad things", the glory of which needs to be told and re-told around the media campfire again and again and savored!
But to the left, so their own Clintonian Royalty made over $100 million off kickbacks and favors? Whey ever would anyone be so small minded to begrudge such greatness such a small pittance? Can we talk about how W got away with being a less than stellar fighter pilot again?
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