On the heels of the exposé on waste and abuse of funds endemic in Bill and Hillary Clinton's charity organization, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes the former first couple are needy, think too much of themselves, and imagine they are "entitled to everyone's money."
The exposé, published in Times on August 13, revealed the Clinton Foundation has consistently run multi-million dollar deficits and is little else but a money machine to pay off Clinton cronies. It is this article that sparked Dowd's memory of the undercurrent of avarice and arrogance that has always flowed just under the Clintons' shiny exterior.
Dowd doesn't hold much back as she slams the Clintons, saying memories of the former first couple are being replaced by reminders of the seediness and greed that always hovered around them like a bad odor. It's a "nostalgia" that is turning into a "neuralgia," Dowd writes.
"Why is it that America’s roil family always seems better in abstract than in concrete? The closer it gets to running the world once more, the more you are reminded of all the things that bugged you the last time around," she quips.
The Clintons’ neediness, their sense of what they are owed in material terms for their public service, their assumption that they’re entitled to everyone’s money.Are we about to put the “For Rent” sign back on the Lincoln Bedroom?If Americans are worried about money in politics, there is no larger concern than the Clintons, who are cosseted in a world where rich people endlessly scratch the backs of rich people.
The columnist also laments that there is always another mini scandal just around the corner with the Clintons. The family has a problem, Dowd says; "something is always blowing up. Just when the Clintons are supposed to be floating above it all, on a dignified cloud of do-gooding leading into 2016, pop-pop-pop, little explosions go off everywhere, reminding us of the troubling connections and values they drag around."
Dowd goes on to mention unseemly demands for money that the Clintons have made before they deliver speeches across the world, recounting details in the Times exposé of the Clinton charity.
Near the end of her Clinton smackdown, Dowd quotes author George Packer, who noted that after leaving the White House in 1953, Harry Truman lived only on his $112-a-montharmy pension and insisted that making money off his public service as President was not respectful to the Office.
Dowd points out that Truman's "quaint" reverence for the presidency is not visible in the Clintons, who seem to view the position as a giant cash register and an excuse for constant self-aggrandizement.
To sum up, Dowd delivers one final kick to the Clintons' ribs: "The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl."
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