Reply #152: Edited version of post - to expand comments to overall topic of thread

[karynnj]

(but I had too many interruptions, and the edit time passed)

This article says:
"On the eve of the New Hampshire primary Robert Morganthau was looking into the BCCI/Stephens/Clinton link. In December 1991 The Wall Street Journal reported that Stephens and his bank invested in Harken Energy, a small Texas investment company of which George Bush, Jr, is a board member. The money Stephens invested came through the Swiss BCCI subsidiary."

First, this explains why Stephens is being investigated, not how Clinton is connected. Even if he got campaign contributions - this wouldn't prove he knew all of Stephens dealings. Second, the source here is the Wall Street Journal speaking of a future investigation - did it actually happen and what did it find. My guess is that if we go to the WSJ as a source on Democrats, we will find all of them accused of awful things. I know they attacked Kerry for decades.

Looking at Newsmeat, I do not see the Clinton contributions. His contributions are interesting - he is clearly now pretty RW - even contributing to Club for Growth. In the past, he contributed to Jimmy Carter as well as John Connally (R) for the 1980 election. For Senate, he backed Bumpers (D). In 1984, he contributed to John Glenn and gave a lot of money to conservative and Republican funds. For 1988, he contributed to Al Gore in the primaries and then to Dukakis in the General Election. He appears to have supported no one in 1992. In 1996, he contributed to Dole and Forbes. For the 2000, election he gave $1000 to McCain in the primary and $250 to W. In 2004, he gave to Bush.

There may have been some way other than straight forward personal contributions that Stephens contributed to Clinton - but it seems weird to me that he would not make any of the normal contributions that he made in every other election and then go out of his way to contribute via other means. (Contributions in Governor races aren't included here.)

My concern with this type of story is that the backup is too weak to make a charge that is that damaging. If we accept things like this, are we better than the Republicans accepting the SBVT because they wanted it to be true that a Democrat was not a genuine war hero? It also brings careful real - but less flamboyant concerns into question.

Here, Clinton did pardon Marc Rich who was wanted for investigation on BCCI related commodities manipulations and did not take up other BCCI related issues that Senator Kerry listed as worth investigating when his committee ended. This likely means that he was willing to condone some level of corruption rather than radically clean up Washington - something he never set as his agenda and even his supporters would never claim. Senator Kerry genuinely stood alone in having the integrity and willingness to take the consequences in doing that. Clinton was not alone in pushing this under the rug. Proof that he ignored it, while not to his credit, does not make him complicit in the actual wrong doing.

Investigations like the Contra/drug investigation and the BCCI investigation dug up seedy actions of people in our government. They are very hard for people to believe or accept because they go against our concept of what type of country we are. Imagine the uproar had Kerry claimed (as is the truth) that his investigation stopped the Contra led drug running into the US under Reagan, who had just died and who the media nearly conferred sainthood on. Reporting on these edgy stories is tricky. On one hand, it might have been that without the initial AP story on Contra drug running, the veterans, who sought out Kerry, who was then a first term Senator, a former prosecutor and someone likely to find both the Contras and the drug running abhorrent, might not have been able to convince him to investigate.

On the other hand, Palast makes claims on this subject that go beyond what Kerry was able to prove. For those, he needs impeccable sources and needs to disclose any reason that makes them suspect. The problem with this type of journalism that attempts to extend lines beyond those where there is proof is that it allows the other side to discredit the proven pieces by proving minor errors in the pieces that took it too far.