Hillary's Bush Connection

Hillary's Bush Connection

Bush's mystery money man becomes Hillary's


The Clintons meet with the Bushes at the White House.

by RUSS BAKER and ADAM FEDERMAN

Research support for this story was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Published in conjunction with The Nation.

In the Clintons' pursuit of power, there is no such thing as a strange bedfellow. One recently exposed inamorata was Norman Hsu, the mysterious businessman from Hong Kong who brought in $850,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign before being unmasked as a fugitive. Her campaign dismissed Hsu as someone who'd slipped through the cracks of an otherwise unimpeachable system for vetting donors, and perhaps he was. The same cannot be said for the notorious financier Alan Quasha, whose involvement with Clinton is at least as substantial--and still under wraps.

Political junkies will recall Quasha as the controversial figure who bailed out George W. Bush's failing oil company in 1986, folding Bush into his company, Harken Energy, thus setting him on the path to a lucrative and high-profile position as an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and the presidency. The persistently unprofitable Harken--many of whose board members, connected to powerful foreign interests and the intelligence community, nevertheless profited enormously--faced intense scrutiny in the early 1990s and again during Bush's first term.

Now Quasha is back--on the other side of the aisle. Operating below the radar, he entered Hillary Clinton's circle even before she declared her candidacy by quietly arranging for the hire of Clinton confidant and longtime Democratic Party money man Terry McAuliffe at one of his companies. During the interregnum between McAuliffe's chairmanship of the Democratic Party and the time he officially joined Clinton's campaign, Quasha's firm set McAuliffe up with a salary and opened a Washington office for him.

Much much more at link:

http://www.realnews.org/stories/2007-10-16_hillary.html

people.

symbolically) has me wondering about the writer’s ax to grind, but this is interesting stuff. On the other hand, if there’s a problem, it’s hardly limited to HRC.

SNIP

Ideology does not seem to be the principal issue driving either Quasha or Nemazee. Nemazee backed the likes of archconservative Republican senators Jesse Helms, Sam Brownback and Al D'Amato before moving aggressively into the Democratic camp. Quasha, frequently identified as a Republican fundraiser, gave to both Bush and Al Gore in 2000 and so far in the 2008 race has given to Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as well as Democrats Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, in addition to Hillary Clinton. But Quasha's concerted efforts to get into Clinton's inner circle are reminiscent of his relationship with a pre-Governor Bush.

SNIP

Failure to be named ambassador did not, however, hamper Nemazee's rise within the Democratic Party. By 2004 he was New York finance chair for John Kerry's campaign, and in 2006 he served under Senator Chuck Schumer as the national finance chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)--a period during which the committee raised about $25 million more than its Republican counterpart. This past March Nemazee, at the behest of McAuliffe, threw a dinner for Hillary at Manhattan's swank Cipriani restaurant, which featured Bill Clinton and raised more than $500,000.

SNIP

"Quasha, frequently identified as a Republican fundraiser, gave to both Bush and Al Gore in 2000 and so far in the 2008 race has given to Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani as well as Democrats Barack Obama and Chris Dodd, in addition to Hillary Clinton."

Reality is few politicians serve the public interest. They serve the special interest that bought them. Quasha is not alone in "hedging his bets" and it is quite common. And until we have real campaign finance reform it will remain quite common. It seems the more Congress reforms campaign finance, the more ways Congress creates for even more corporate money to be funnelled into their campaign coffers. They like it. Democrats as well as Republicans.

Corporations are not supposed to contribute to poltical campaigns but they continue to do so through a variety of funding vehicles such as PACs which supposedly are "employee contributions" but are really "employee contributions" that are often coerced and always steered to the party that serves the corporate interest best but always with a little here and there to the other party so that no one can accuse them of being partisan in their contributions. Even though they are. The party in power always gets the most money.

The first thing the Democrats should do if they ever manage to achieve a veto-proof majority is to ban all corporate contributions completely but looking at Madame Speaker and the "Starkist Exemption" as many refer to it that she had placed in the minimum-wage legislation it probably would be the very last thing the Democrats will ever do. Definitely will be the last thing the Republicans would even consider doing. Money talks and when it does, the interest of the American people walks.

In the end, it's not about the interests of the American people. It's all about the money, honey...

It is an expanded indictment of the Democratic Party "Beltway" leadership, especially Schumer, the DSCC, and the DLC.

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Not for people who depend on Social Security.

Most don't want to bother to follow the money trails. They find it too convenient to just vote for whoever the "leadership" tells them to vote for. Like little children following the Pied Piper.

So if the polls are telling them that Clinton is the leader then that is who they will vote for. Name recognition doesn't hurt either, no thinking involved there either. With Hill and Bill in the news so much it's easy to tell who the MSM wants to be the nominee. In other words who the Repukes want to easily beat.

Latr

She has sold herself to become part of the problem. This is why I am against her. The corporate money men will destroy the world and she willing puts herself under their collective thumb. We need a revolutionary change. Or at least someone to clean up the corruption and legalized bribery. She will do neither.

First, take the money out of politics by bringing all elected offices under public financing. Get the special interests out of politics.

A second, and possibly more effective way, is to make every elected office a lifetime term. Then each year we'll hold an election to determine if we will let them live another year. Guarantee no political corruption.

Hawkowl, I agree but look at it from a slightly different standpoint. Yes, she sold herself to the corporations, but with a net worth of around fifty million dollars she is not a slave to the elite. SHE IS ONE OF THE ELITE. Anything she could do to limit the profits of the elite she would be doing to herself, and that's just irrational.