The World Tribune


The Ballad of Newt & Hill

By Scott McCollum
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Thursday, January 4, 2001

You’re a Gen-X teenage boy. You decided to get a job and stop living up to the low expectations of your age group, but in keeping with the “edgy” outlook on life you’re supposed to have, you get a job parking cars at the biggest strip club in town. Although the pay is enough to keep you from bugging your parents about spending money, they go ballistic. You mom screams about the corruption of the moral values she’s tried to instill in you for years that you’ll undoubtedly erase from your memory the second you enter that whorehouse, and your dad lets you know about how the family name will be sullied because of your foolish choice of this dishonest and dirty way of making money. Although you’ve accepted the job, you respect your parents’ wishes and immediately quit your tasteless job at the seedy strip joint.

However it seems that your older sister, the one that mom and dad fawn all over, has decided to work at the same club as a waitress but you hear no argument from your parents. You’re outraged! How can your sister get away with this – she’s going to be working inside the club rather than in the parking lot like you would’ve while making twice the money and being leered at constantly by the shady patrons! How is it different when she works at a strip club? Your dad tells you that your sister will be earning a decent wage as a waitress in one of the most respected cabarets in town and there’s nothing wrong with that since she’s of legal age to make her own decisions. Your mom imparts that many businessmen conduct deals at cabarets and could be beneficial to your sister’s future career by networking and making contacts with them in this casual setting. Neither parent uses the words “moral corruption,” “whorehouse” or “dirty money” when describing your sister’s “choice” in employment. Although you know your sister is actually a dancer at the club and not a waitress like she said, your parents look the other way because she’s the pretty one that says exactly what they want to hear.

This example of hypocrisy mirrors what’s going on right now in American politics with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Senator-elect Hillary Clinton. For those with short memories, in December 1994 a Republican congressman from Georgia about to become Speaker of the House was assailed by pols and pundits for accepting a $4.5 million advance for his book To Renew America from Harper Collins Publishing. The Left complained about how Gingrich had a meeting with Rupert Murdoch, the head of the media empire that owned Harper Collins and in the Left’s eyes, now owned Newt. What would happen to all the regulatory problems that Murdoch’s companies faced in Congress now with the Speaker of the House in the media emperor’s back pocket? Why, they’d magically disappear of course! To the Left-wingers that’s the way that rich white men like Murdoch and Gingrich worked in the quid pro quo world of politics and big money. To them, the 4.5 million bucks could only mean one thing: Gingrich only cares about money and not the people of America he is supposed to represent. Congresswoman Carrie Meeks of Florida asked of Gingrich: “Who [sic] does he really work for? Is it the American people or his New York publishing house?” This prompted Michigan Congressman David Bonior to comment on the Gingrich book deal: “This is an arrogant act for a man who’s about to assume one of the most powerful positions and offices in our land. Before he gets to the public business, he’s taking care of his own private profits.”

Guess what Bonior says about Hillary Clinton getting an $8 million advance for her book from Simon & Schuster? Nothing. Bonior, as of this writing, has been “unavailable” for comment, but his office did say that Mrs. Clinton hasn’t been “officially” sworn into office and therefore is immune to any congressional ethics committee scrutiny. Representative Meeks has “officially” kept her mouth shut about Hillary’s $8 million memoirs, unlike Senator Tom Daschle, a champion of the Left who was elated at Clinton’s good fortune. “More power to her,” Daschle said. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada must’ve been vacationing the past four weeks on the same planet Whitley Strieber keeps getting carried off to since Reid claimed: “I haven’t heard a single word about it. I think it’s wonderful she could do it” when asked about Hillary’s book deal. Let me get this straight – the Vice Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee hasn’t heard a single word about the ethical concerns of a junior senator from New York getting $8 million from a New York-based publisher who’s parent company, Viacom is facing a number of regulatory issues in Congress (just like Rupert Murdoch’s company was in 1994) and was a major corporate contributor to said senator’s campaign?

What about the outrage from the Right, you ask? Sure, there’s always going to be the extremists on the AM radio talk shows that hate anything a Clinton does, but in Congress it’s quite different. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, not exactly a fan of the Clintons, had little to say other than “I don’t want to be critical of [Mrs. Clinton]” and Congressman David Drier (R-CA) praised Hillary Clinton’s book deal as American “capitalism at its best.” The most vitriolic outrage in print media I’ve seen against Clinton’s book deal was in the fifth largest metropolitan newspaper in the nation, New York’s Newsday, by Jimmy Breslin who wrote in his December 18th column: “Every time Hillary Clinton passes a bank the burglar alarm goes off. Good morning, suckers. You got exactly what you wanted.” Outrageous? Yeah, especially since Breslin is very outspoken in his disdain for right-wingers. Jimmy Breslin is a liberal columnist!

Newt Gingrich, ever the politician, took care of his $4.5 million dilemma by bowing to pressure from the Left and gave back the advance (except for a dollar) and took only a percentage of the book’s royalties. To keep this from being an issue again, laws were passed so that the members of the House couldn’t make obscene amounts writing books while in office, but there’s obviously no law against that in the Senate and especially when it comes to Hillary Clinton (do you doubt the ethical questions that would be raised if Republican Senator-elect George Allen from Virginia, himself a junior senator, had a multi-million dollar advance handed to him by ReganBooks just before inauguration?). There’s unfortunately no law against rank hypocrisy.

Do I think Hillary Clinton is a hypocrite for taking those millions and declaring with piety that the money won’t influence her at all? Absolutely. Do I think Newt Gingrich is a hypocrite for writing books about how to mend the moral fiber of America rent by the Clintonistas while he was having a very Bill Clinton-like affair with a young woman who worked on Capitol Hill while his wife was battling cancer? Definitely. Do I think either of them has anything to say that’s worth plunking down $17 at the on-line bookseller site for one of their books?

What do you think?

Scott McCollum is a high-tech consultant living in Austin, Texas, where he also writes on technology for Internet publications. Scott_McCollum@Dell.com


Thursday, January 4, 2001



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