The Anchoress
Driving today I heard a report on NPR that Norman Hsu was also a substantial donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. Yes, I was surprised to hear about it on NPR, too.
Hsu also gave a hefty donation to the Clinton School of Public Service, which they are returning. But my! Hsu certainly spread it around all the little avenues of Clintonville very quickly – and thoroughly.
From Instapundit:
When Bill Clinton received an award at a gala dinner honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy last year, the former president expressed his thanks before an audience that included a Nobel Prize winner and a glittering array of show business celebrities and Wall Street titans. Yet the second sentence of his remarks expressed special gratitude to a man almost no one there had heard of: “our friend Norman Hsu.”
The story of Hsu, the major Democratic fundraiser who turned out to be a fugitive from justice, is a tangled one that stretches back more than 15 years. But more recent developments in the world of campaign finance helped create the environment in which a man like Hsu could be welcomed into the company of people like the Kennedys and Clintons.
Thanks, campaign finance “reform”! (Via NewsAlert, which notes: “To Bill Clinton Norman Hsu was a bundler of joy.”)
From my email:
A sneak peak at this weekend’s “Chris Matthews Show”:
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS:
“Up until now, Bill Clinton has been a complete plus among Democratic primary voters for Hillary Clinton. But now, with the Norman Hsu money-raising controversy, for the first time there’s a real concern in the Clinton camp that this is real baggage from the Clinton White House years. There’s a lot of stress, a lot of damage control, a lot of finger-pointing — and in fact, stress is so high that there was a shouting match observed among Clinton staffers in public last week.”
Really, must we see this damned flash-and-cash-smoke-and-mirrors-flim-flam-daily-scam-a-rama once again? I didn’t like this movie the first time.
Michelle Malkin is keeping an eye and has lots more. I get the impression that since this story has grown legs, Mrs. Clinton wants to get rid of as much of this money as she can, as fast as she can, so scrutiny will go no further. Personally, I wish there was a way we could follow up on ALL of these pols when they say they’re “donating” bad money or “giving it back.” How does that get verified? How do we know that the “donations to charity” are not simply donations to vehicles which re-deliver the funds to the campaign? That question has been bothering me for a while. Anyone know?
I love this quote from Terry McAuliffe: “Everybody loved [Hsu]…to tell the truth, he was hard to understand.”
Doh! We didn’t know he was a schemer and a fraud! We couldn’t understand that part! We just thought he was cute as the dickens and he had all that money! In grocery bags!…ooops, that was last time – never mind). There is just something really off about how easily anyone with money can get so close to these folks, so easily. This movie seems to be a serial.
Protein Wisdom has an abundance of eye-openers, this one is most entertaining, to me:
5. Hillary set aside 1 million dollars of taxpayer money for a “Woodstock” museum. The head of Source Financial was a major Woodstock promoter and also a long time Clinton friend.
I think I wrote elsewhere on the blog this week – we’re not especially encouraged to remember 9/11, but we’re not allowed to forget 1968 (or, more correctly 1969). Why do taxpayer monies need to be spent on such a museum when there are more than enough incredibly rich, former anti-capitalist hippies to support such a thing privately?
UPDATE: Does Harry Reid work off the same script?
UPDATE II: It’s one of those mysteries I never tire of pondering – this ABC News story doesn’t mention Hsu’s connections to Presidential Candidate Sen. Clinton at all. I imagine it would be just so, were Hsu connected to say, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, yes? Of course.
WELCOME Instapundit readers (and thanks for the link, Glenn)! While you’re here please look around. Today we’re also talking about Our Lady of Sorrows, and I have unwisely rattled the cages of the semi-dozing bears of illegal immigration. The archives there are pretty interesting. Today’s new motto: Weakness is sown; strength rises up!
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