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S.E. Wood Pardon me? "Pardon, your slip is showing!" In these days of pant suits and blue jeans,
that statement probably doesn't carry much relevance. But there
was a time when a lady's ultimate embarrassment was the appearance
of her slip showing below her dress. Well, things have changed
a bit, and if women did still wear such an undergarment, it would
take much more than a fringe of lace to create a blush of embarrassment.
But in the life of an ex-president, it is the pardon itself that keeps showing. We had become somewhat conditioned to the proposition that it takes money to run a political campaign, and so what if a little of it comes from Communist China or from a fugitive who just happened to be in need of a criminal pardon. That's just life in the fast lane. But every week brings a new twist. First it
was Roger Clinton, brother of the ex-president and recipient
of one of the midnight pardons, who is being investigated by
the FBI for accepting bribe money for the purchase of other Clinton
pardons. And while that investigation continues, now we learn
that Hillary's brother, Hugh Rodham, was also into the act. Big
time! Four hundred thousand dollars' worth! But the real fun part is how the word got
out, and how the mainstream press is spinning to downplay its
significance. With all the investigative reporters of The New
York Times,The Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., etc., it
was the grocery store tabloid, The National Enquirer, that broke
the story. When ex-prez Clinton got word of it, he "leaked"
his own version of events to the Associated Press, in which he
expressed his astonishment that such a thing could have happened,
vowed no knowledge of the payoff to the first brother-in-law,
and revealed that he had actually insisted that Hugh return the
$400 grand, presumably to the now-pardoned convicts who had paid
him. Furthermore, Bill claimed that his brother-in-law, with
whom he golfed last week in Florida, had actually never even
mentioned the pardons to him! Now let's see. Hugh Rodham takes $400,000
from two convicted felons to purchase their pardons from the
only person in the world with the power to grant such pardons,
and he never mentioned the pardons to him? Now what kind of lawyer
is that? And by the way, Hillary says he didn't mention them
to her either. When the story broke, The Washington Post
headlined, "Hugh Rodham Returns Pardon Fees," instead
of, "Hugh Rodham Received Bribes For Pardons." They
then went on to explain that after all, Rodham is a lawyer, just
doing what any good lawyer would do. No different from the fee
received by former White House attorney Jack Quinn in securing
a pardon for his fugitive client, Marc Rich. And the bribes received
by brother Hugh were not really bribes anyhow, they were just
"success fees." I kid you not, that's a direct quotation.
Someone has described the Clinton path from the White House to be like that of a snail crawling across your basement floor ... leaving behind a trail of slime. And it just keeps getting slimier and slimier. |