Ms. Brazile is a former Clinton aide and current chair of the DNC (Democratic National Committee). She doesn’t see anything wrong with donors to the Clinton Foundation gaining privileged access to Secretary of State Clinton. As she puts it, this is “normal”; and for critics to say otherwise is “smoke”.
Ms. Brazile appears to have absorbed the political culture in which she has immersed herself and prospered, to the point where she’s exhibiting a significant degree of ethical blindness. That culture is not a culture of ethics, honor, fairness and conscience.
Government for the people, for the general welfare and for the public interest may be an unattainable ideal, but at least it provides an ethical guideline for a government, if there is to be one. Such government cannot be achieved if government officials accept bribes, payoffs or funding in any of many forms from specific persons and groups whose interests are to influence laws and policies to benefit themselves at the expense of the broad public. The revolving door by which former officials accept high-paying positions in companies whose businesses they have previously regulated or legislated for is a corrupt practice. Companies paying for Congressional junkets is corrupt. Campaign contributions by known donors who expect access or votes in return is corrupt.
In the same way, the Clinton Foundation, no matter what its charitable endeavors are, has a corrupt structure. The e-mails show how this corruption worked out in practice. A sitting Secretary of State had her door wide open to specific donors to her associated money-collecting foundation. She, her family, and associated employees all stood to gain reputation, power, influence and wealth by this cozy and highly unethical relationship. This is what Brazile sees as “normal”. I do not question the fact that it might be pervasive and widely observable, but that does not mean that it conforms to a standard that we applaud. Indeed, if such arrangements are normal, as the revolving door arrangements are, this shows how corrupt the political system is and that the unethical is being called normal. To be “normal” does not mean that it’s acceptable, and it doesn’t mean that an ethical questioning of it is “smoke”.
Many of us question the ethics of it. Maybe a case of bribery cannot be proven, but so what? The letter of the law doesn’t always capture its spirit. As long as we have government, what spirit shall animate it? Certainly not one of favoritism purchased directly or indirectly.
For another perspective, Ms. Brazile should read Glenn Greenwald’s article “Why Did the Saudi Regime and Other Gulf Tyrannies Donate Millions to the Clinton Foundation?”.
1:59 pm on August 28, 2016
