Hillary Clinton's Quid Pro Quo Mess over Earmark for Woodstock Museum
"A neat 50% claim they would never, even under pain of waterboarding (kidding), cast their presidential vote for Hillary Clinton."
I don't buy the unelectibility argument about Hillary Clinton, probably because, frankly, I never used to be a supporter of hers.
But like millions of Democrats, I've seen the light. Hillary Clinton's light, that is... of competency, intelligence, strength and pragmatic policy made flesh. And genuine likeability.
(See Profile of Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.)
What worries me... pains me, even depresses me... about Hillary Clinton and political soulmate, husband President Bill Clinton, is that they seemed to have learned nothing over the years about:
- the wrongness of doing business with shady fundraisers
- casting votes based on political expediency, not right and wrong
- the essential corruption of quid pro quo politics
Hill and Bill's old-style pol tactics in action are epitomized by last week's brouhaha over funding for an upstate New York museum to celebrate Woodstock, the 1969 "hippie" music festival that became the landmark event of the baby boomer generation. Here are the basic facts:
- New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer quietly inserted into Senate health and education appropriations bill H.R. 3043 an earmark for $1 million to fund the Museum at Bethel Woods, which is devoted to the Woodstock festival.
- Nine days after the earmark was inserted, the main backer of the museum donated $9,200 to Clinton's presidential campaign.
- H.R. 3043 was passed by the Senate on October 23, 2007.
- Predictably and immediately, Republicans, particularly Sen. John McCain, made political hay last week of Hillary's funding of a museum memorializing Woodstock.
On October 25, the embarrassed Senate quickly sought to correct their oversight error. Reported USA Today:
"The Senate voted Thursday to kill a $1 million grant for a museum on the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert, a rare rebuke of a legislative pet project and a blow to the presidential candidate who backed it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton."
Obvious Problems of this Silly Earmark
The foremost problem is the obvious connection between Sen. Clinton's pork-barrel earmark of $1 million for a trip down Woodstock memory lane, and just days later, the sizable campaign contribution by the museum's main backer.
It's quid pro quo politics as usual. It's unethical. It's the no different than the hundreds of influence-peddling scandals that haunted Bill Clinton's administration.
Americans are tired of it! It depresses me, and millions others, to think that Sen. Clinton is the presumptive Democratic 2008 nominee... and that our great country would be forced to again experience all the dark sides, the down sides and demoralizing, bad-habit dramas of the Bill and Hillary franchise.
The secondary problem is more puzzling. Sen. Clinton's decision to use a dreaded earmark for anything while campaigning for the presidency seems arrogant.
But her decision to use that earmark to support Woodstock, the supreme symbol to a majority of Americans of liberals run amok, seems wildly stupid. (Or arrogantly disinterested.) Just imagine how the Republican 2008 nominee could effectively use this earmark to smear her and all Democrats.
In fact, you don't need to wait. Take a gander at Sen. McCain's clever, psychedelic new Woodstock ad on YouTube .
Hillary Clinton's quid pro quo mess over her earmark for a $1 million for a museum to memorialize Woodstock makes me wonder... is Sen. Clinton the candidate to move the U.S. forward past the grotesque ethical lapses of the Clinton and Bush administrations?
And when, oh when, will our country stop fighting the seemingly ancient cultural battles of the baby-boomer generation?
(Photo: Chad Buchanan/ Getty Images)
Recommended Reading
Profile of Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York
Clinton vs. Obama: The Iowa Niceness Factor
USA Today, Oct 26, 2007: Senate quashes grant for Woodstock museum
CNN, Oct 19, 2007: Clinton blasted over 'hippie museum'
Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record, Oct 29, 2007: Museum at Bethel Woods: A political attraction?
Comments
If that’s all McCain has he should quit now. He won’t make valid crticisms against her because they’re in essential agreement on issues- the surge is working, authorize the “Patriot Act, Authorize the war, etc.
i like hillary and she still has my vote, but it’s this kind of thing that helps me understand the naysayers. nonetheless, she’s hardly the first or last person to slip some pork into an unrelated bill. myabe it’s my generation talking, but i hardly look at woodstock as liberalism “run amok.” i can see how extreme conservatives could think that, but at this point, it’s a rather historically and culturally relevant event that has come to symbolize for many in my generation (the children of woodstock-goers) a moment in american history where people came together to peaceably celebrate music while some terrible embarrassment of a war was going on. i would think a museum commemmorating that is very historically relevant.
so i’m kind of on the fence on this one.
one of my friends made a great point the other day, which is that hillary is perhaps such a strong candidate because we know the dirt, we know what b.s. to expect. there are no surprises with her anymore, so all the dirt that gets drudged up starts to seem like it can be easily shirked. whereas, who knows what will surface about others along the way?
this seems like one of those things to me. kind of arrogant, sure, but not a campaign-slaughtering move, in all honesty. one can only wonder why the senate hasn’t gone back and removed all the other pet projects that other senators have slid through so many other pieces of legislation. just a thought.
Deborah:
A great post on the importance of ethics in government that both the left and the right need to take to heart.
Thanks!