The Dangers Of Being Close To The Clintons

How many of your friends in the last 20 years have been killed, committed suicide, died under mysterious circumstances, gone to prison of just plain disappeared?

More Crooked Clinton Fundraising?

Ed Morrisey thinks that Ron Burkle, a devout Friend of the Clintons, found a way to funnel $20 million into Hillary's campaign.

Where did Hillary get $5 million to loan a presidential campaign? Bill and Hillary have done well on the speaking circuit, and Bill recently got $20 million or so for backing out of his partnership from Ron Burkle. At the time, speculation had Bill wanting to eliminate any potential conflicts between Burkle's business and Hillary's election.

Now, however, one has to wonder whether Burkle may have attempted to float money into Hillary's campaign while bypassing campaign-finance regulations. Did the $20 million, which came just two weeks ago, actually represent a fair-market settlement for Clinton's services and ownership stake in Yucaipa? Or did Burkle inflate it in order to allow Hillary to "loan" herself $5 million to keep pace with a surging Obama campaign?

The Clintons always seem to live at the nexus of questions regarding cash and politics. Whether we talk about Norman Hsu or Ron Burkle, their opacity in financial operations suggests a very, er, flexible attitude towards ethics in government -- and serves as a reminder why so many people oppose a Clinton Restoration.

Democrats: Slow Learners

Democrats are just now figuring out what Republicans have known all along.

YESTERDAY, I had a vicious anti-Clinton chain e-mail forwarded to me. By a Democrat.

The e-mail has circulated for years among the right wing; it outlines a conspiratorial case against the Clintons that includes accusations of the murder of their close friends Ron Brown and Vince Foster.

This Democrat rejected the murder charges, of course. But it was clear that the rest of the message - that the Clintons are divisive, dishonest and only concerned with themselves - struck a nerve with my e-mailer, who received it from a liberal friend.

Bill Clinton's recent antics in South Carolina are unlikely to reverse these bad feelings.

In response to a reporter's question about the Clintons' double-teaming Barack Obama, the former president answered with this non sequitur: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."