From The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Dick Polman
Op-Ed
September 30, 2007

Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to sell herself as a reformer, a new broom that will sweep away the traditional Washington chicanery

Yet her response to a fund-raising scandal in her own shop is classic old-school politics, and her determination to run a fully privatized presidential race is the antithesis of reform.

Consider the case of Norman Hsu, the onetime fugitive and confessed crook who raised $850,000 for Clinton's campaign, and who now stands freshly accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, and violation of campaign finance laws. ...

When Clinton was asked about Hsu on NBC the other day, she said this: "Well, I'm very much in favor of public financing, which is the only way to really change a lot of the problems that we have in our campaign-finance system. . . . The real answer here is public financing, and I'm going to work very hard in my time in the Senate and then in the White House to try to get to a public-financing system . . . because that is the answer to all of these issues that have arisen." ...

To which I say, "What a crock."

During her six-year Senate career, Clinton has never once championed campaign-finance reform. ...

Indeed, her basic posture on this issue mirrors her husband's behavior during the '90s; when Bill was president, he repeatedly vowed to work for campaign-finance reform, but didn't lift a finger to follow through. Then he got saddled with the 1996 fund-raising scandal (with private money getting laundered through tax-exempt houses of worship, and illegal foreign money winding up at Democratic Party headquarters, among other things), culminating in 22 guilty pleas and scores of shady characters fleeing the country to avoid questioning. ...

Hillary Rodham Clinton's avowed support for public financing is flatly contradicted by her current conduct as a candidate

We actually have a public-financing process already, first enacted in the aftermath of Watergate ...

But the public-financing process has always been voluntary - and Clinton made history last winter by becoming the first candidate to drop out completely. ...

Which brings us back to Norman Hsu. He may be an extreme case, but his urge to vacuum money for Hillary Rodham Clinton was fully in tune with the operating ethos of her campaign. ...

Clinton's rhetoric aside, she has done virtually nothing to change the system. And she risks political damage if voters begin to suspect that her reform talk is merely a cover for politics as usual.

To View Entire Article, Please Click Here.

PDF Format

save this article / add to your favorites list