Letters to the Editor
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From Alexander Cockburn
Bill, Hillary and the Rich Women
Listening to Hillary Clinton’s top aides trying to put a good face on the results of the Indiana primary had the same surreal quality as an aide to Hitler reporting “encouraging news” from Stalingrad. Her candidacy died on May 5. She needed at least a 10 per cent win in Indiana and in the end she scraped through by not much more than 16,000 votes. Every day she stays in the race now means more zeroes on her campaign debt which probably tops $25 million, when all the IOUs are counted. Hillary might have to go back into the cattle futures business.
There’s talk of Mrs Clinton telling Obama that the price of concession is that he settle her campaign debt and take her on the ticket. He’s got the money though he should for worthier purposes. As for the number 2 spot, what does it take to keep the Clintons clear of the White House? A stake through both their hearts? An Aztec priest with a really sharp piece of obsidian? If ever a campaign disclosed low moral and political fiber, it was this one. Bill ended up as a petulant sleazeball and Hillary as a war drum thumper, marching shoulder to shoulder with John McCain, shouting that she’s the candidate of the white people.
There’s no better paradigm of the corruption of the Clintons than the pardon handed by Bill to billionaire Marc Rich in the dying seconds of the Clinton administration. Jeffrey St Clair has excavated the whole sleazo saga in fascinating detail in our latest newsletter, available to subscribers only. “Bill and the Rich Women” is must reading, as is the view taken by Rich’s powerful lawyers that Hillary Clinton was key to the pardon.