Americans must question veracity of rumors
Letter to the Editor
While I respect Mr. Marchand's right to disagree with Mr. Clinton's politics and to doubt his achievements I have to take issue with the first few claims in his Jan. 29 column. Namely, that the Clintons "shook down Democratic fat-cat donors for more than $200,000 in housewarming gifts" and "cleverly timed" the gifts to skirt Senatorial regulations on donations. I'm not living in the United States right now, yet even with my meager Internet resources in five minutes I was able to dig up more facts than Mr. Marchand did. Since when does slinging unproven accusations count as journalism?
First of all, that figure. It's a nice, round, scandalous number, isn't it? Of course, it's a slight exaggeration. The actual number, which the Clintons submitted themselves, was $190,027 — which admittedly is still a hefty chunk of merchandise.
Of course, if Mr. Marchand had done a little more research, he might've also discovered that the previous occupants of the White House, Mr. and Mrs. Bush, pocketed $144,000 worth of gifts. As Salon.com put it (http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/30/clinton/ index.html), "Not bad, considering those were recession years. Yet nobody suggests Poppy and Bar lacked a moral compass."
Good old Mr. Reagan did even better, allowing his wealthy friends to buy him and Nancy a house worth over $2.5 million two years before he left office. Salon also points out that the Clintons received two pieces from a renowned glass artist (one from the artist himself) that cost a combined $60,000. That's nearly one-third of their entire take (not to mention the fact that without those two pieces, the Clintons "took home" less than the Bushes).
Mr. Marchand (along with several other sources like NPR's Scott Simon) also alleges that the Clintons arranged for the gifts to be given "just before Mrs. Clinton was sworn in, to avoid violating Senate ethics rules." Where is the proof for this? In fact, many of the gifts were given before she even entered the New York race. The Clintons' 2000 Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report clearly states the the $190,000 worth of gifts included things given to them over the course of the last eight years.
First Families are given many things and always decide at the end of the year which to accept and disclose and which to leave to the archives. Sometimes the decisions get put off, which is why the gift take in the final year is always the biggest. One of those expensive pieces of art, for instance, was actually given to the Clintons nearly three years ago. Also, if someone actually did want to give Hillary a gift worth more than the regulation $250, why not just wait a month and give it to her now-private citizen husband, thus rendering the entire "Senate gift ban" issue moot?
Mr. Marchand also refers to Denise Rich, whom he calls "one of the most generous suppliers of the Clinton's gift registry." He links her gift (for the record, $7,300 for two chairs and two coffee tables) to the pardon her husband recently received. Of course, the New York Post reported that the gifts were given over 10 months ago. One would think that if the furniture was meant as the bribe Marchand wants it to be, Mrs. Rich would've been careful to link the two events more closely.
Why was any of this newsworthy in the first place? Because — as Salon pointed out — both mainstream (and university) journalists' standards seem to evaporate when covering the Clintons, especially when publicly questioning their character. There was absolutely nothing illegal about the gifts the Clintons received, and yet Mr. Marchand wants us to shake our heads and "tsk tsk" simply at the enormity of the figure (which isn't even that large when you put it in context). This was a last, final low blow from bitter and childish members of the media eager to spread more disinformation about the former President.
You know, when friends forward me similarly untrue and wildly inaccurate e-mails, I point them to the Urban Legends website at http://snopes.com. Ooh, and what was added there less than a week ago? A list of the pranks that Clinton staffers allegedly pulled. The site says that the veracity of such accusations is still "undetermined." Perhaps in the future Mr. Marchand should similarly wait to publish his "facts" until doing a little basic research.
Kristine Howard
class of '99
London, England
January 31, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, January 31, 2001
