WASHINGTON -- Again with the speeches. The gross excessiveness of it all, vacuuming up six-figure checks well past the point of rational need or political seemliness. The ceaseless drip of information that ought to have already been released, now being presented with a self-serving back pat over transparency.
I wasn't planning to write, again, about Hillary Clinton's compulsive speechifying. I already weighed in nearly a year ago urging her to stop talking. For money, that is.
That unheeded advice came, by my accounting, some $6 million ago. Not including Bill Clinton's speeches. Not including any speeches that Hillary Clinton made on behalf of the family foundation, which just disclosed that, um, it neglected to disclose somewhere between $12 million and $26 million of money it made by booking the Clintons.
Because, the foundation explained, this money counted as "revenue," not "donations," and therefore was not reported. Their reporting pledge only covered donations. (Credit here for continuing the reporting after she left State Department.)
Let me repeat: I am a fan of Hillary Clinton's. But here I find myself, once again, with hair on fire, so let me explain why I find this conduct so disturbing.
It is, granted, a little late to bemoan the spectacle of former presidents, or former anything elses, taking to the lecture circuit to cash in.
When Ronald Reagan, fresh from the White House, pocketed $2 million in speaking fees from a Japanese company, New York Times columnist William Safire sputtered.
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