Pillow Talk

As I flew to Brussels, Belgium this weekend I read a Financial Times (March 4th) article with the headline -- "Bill Clinton's ties with Dubai make life harder for Hillary" -- which focused on US Senator Hillary Clinton's apparent ignorance of her husband's, former US President Bill Clinton, consulting work for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) including US$450,000 in speaking fees in 2002, in addition to nearly $1million in donations to the Clinton Presidential Library, which were disclosed on Senator Clinton's senatorial financial disclosure forms.

It is now 2006 and the UAE company, "DP World", is trying to gain approval to manage several ports in the USA which Senator Clinton is a vocal opponent of due to national security concerns. But apparently her husband's eight (8) years of foreign policy experience as our president leads him to believe that the deal should be approved since he is advising the UAE on the best way to get the deal approved. Now assuming the Clintons find themselves sleeping in the same bed this would make for some very interesting pillow talk.

I have no reason to believe that they are doing what a corrupt lobbyist and corrupt state legislator (Delegate) did in the State of Maryland -- which I immediately thought of when I read this Financial Times article -- when I was living there several years ago. Essentially it was a scam whereby bogus legislation was introduced by the legislator/delegate as a way for the lobbyist to shake down current clients which is detailed below:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/oi/iys.aspx?st=MD&sub=pub
Delegate Tony E. Fulton and statehouse lobbyist Gerard Evans were ordered to stand trial on 11 counts of mail and wire fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud Evans' chemical industry clients out of lobbying fees. The high-profile Young and Fulton cases paint harmful images of Maryland lawmakers who have used relationships with lobbyists and other special interests for personal financial gain. The indictment alleges that Fulton helped Evans collect $400,000 in lobbying fees over three years by proposing legislation that would make it easier to file lawsuits against paint companies and asbestos manufacturers, The Baltimore Sun reported. Prosecutors contend that Evans steered a $10,125 real estate commission to payoff Fulton for helping with the plan, according to the Sun.

Now I am not saying that Senator Hillary Clinton is Delegate Tony Fulton and President Bill Clinton is lobbyist Gerard Evans in this case but the the same political/financial opportunity exists for the Clintons via some simple pillow talk between the two of them so if Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to run for president in 2008 both her and Bill need to be extra transparent regarding their financial dealings since USA port security tends to be a much higher profile issue versus the trading of cattle futures.

Run Hillary Run,

Todd