The Clintons Can Multi-Task

This week’s G-File http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439184/clinton-foundation-corruption-hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-love-power is about the Clintons and corruption (but I repeat myself). In it Jonah Goldberg makes the case that the Clinton Foundation wasn’t primarily about the money and our focus on pay for play is evidence of a corrupted view of corruption. While acknowledging that the Clintons are not averse to wealth Goldberg argues the Foundation "was about keeping the Imperial Court in Exile well-tended to for their return to power."


Wellllllllllll, up to a point. I take Jonah's main point to be that the Clinton's corruption is centered on power not money and on this he is certainly correct. But it doesn't follow that all of their activities are similarly sourced, that there is a necessary unifying theory of corruption at play here.

Putin, Arafat, your pick of South America strongmen were in it for the power but that didn't keep them from amassing wealth. And this accumulation didn't just happen but was rather the result of their deliberate actions to live in a manner appropriate to their station.

I take it that the Clintons in the course of fundraising in Manhattan and Hollywood came upon the idea that there were a lot of things they'd like to have and that falling back to something like the lifestyle of their Little Rock days was positively distasteful. And it isn't hard to imagine that Bill and Hill in mixing with people who were not all that impressive but who had a lot more money than they did came to feel a bit cheated in the wealth department. The Clinton Foundation was the most efficient, politically acceptable way (working to help in Haiti!) to monetize their position of power in a way that would be completely in their control.

Yes, the foundation also helped to keep their political entourage together, but I don't agree with Goldberg that this was the central motivation. Those people weren't going anywhere as any Lanny Davis to Hillary email should make clear.

As Mel Brooks noted "it's good to be the King." First on the list of reasons why is power, but the palace, the jewels, the best food and fashion also make the list. I think the Clintons are capable of diversifying into the pursuit of wealth as well as power. The email scandal was about power, the Clinton Foundation is mostly about making money.

Wait, Conservatives Object to Super Delegates? What?

I take it that a certain ambivalence and distrust towards full blown democracy is consistent with, if not a core tenet of, conservatism. And yet in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton losing the New Hampshire primary by 22 percentage points to Bernie Sanders but still being awarded the same number of delegates, you’d get a different impression. On social media and in numerous columns conservative pundits and supporters have been either mocking or highly critical.

The reason for the New Hampshire result is the Democratic Party’s use of super delegates. Of the total 4,763 delegates and 2,382 needed to win, 712 are super delegates whose voting is not constrained by the voting in primaries. So super delegates constitute 14.9% of the total. If my math is correct a pure insurgent candidate would need to win 58.8% of the voting determined delegates to gain the nomination [2,382/(4,763 – 712) = .588].If you hang out with Vox, Salon, MSNBC this an abomination, but for conservatives? If Aaron Burr having dispensed with Alexander Hamilton seeks the Federalist Party nomination is an 8.8 percentage point higher bar in the popular will beyond the pale?

This same week, John Yoo wrote an interesting piece titled Trump and Sanders, The Founders Worst Nightmare on the founder’s view towards selecting a president. Yoo notes:

“To prevent mindless populism from seizing the White House, the Founders rejected nationwide election of the president. Instead, they created the Electoral College. States choose electors (equal to the number of their members of the House and Senate), who meet and send their votes to Congress. If there is no majority, then the House votes by state delegation to choose the chief executive.

While the Electoral College today seems Rube Goldberg-esque, it served the important purpose of weeding out emotional passions and popular, but poor, candidates.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-and-sanders-the-founders-worst-nightmare/article/2001014

I suspect the real issue here for conservatives is a) the progressive tendency to overplay the idea of their being the true voice of the people, and b) disdain for Hillary Clinton. A better avenue of criticism would be Hillary’s call to abolish the Electoral College in the aftermath of the 2000 election. On that occasion Hillary stated:

         “We are a very different country than we were 200 years ago,…I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people and to me, that means it’s time to do away with the Electoral College and move to the popular election of our president.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/264347-obama-clinton-backed-reforms-to-electoral-college-after-bush-v-gore

In light of recent events, an enterprising reporter or debate moderator might ask her about this.