Today The Washington Post (my other employer) has an article with the colorful title "Role of Hillary Clinton's brother in Haiti gold mine raises eyebrows." If you are looking for eyebrows, you best look up, for they have been raised. The story itself doesn't suggest any wrongdoing on Tony Rodham's part, but it does say that the fact that he's on the advisory board of this somewhat controversial mine "has become a potentially problematic issue for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she considers a second presidential run." Well anything's potentially problematic, I suppose, though judging from this one article it doesn't sound all that scandalous. There is the unsurprising possibility that the people who control the mine put Tony Rodham on their advisory board because of who his sister is; he says he's there to woo investors, which reminds me a lot of another story in the Post, this one about Jeb Bush's business career. Bush doesn't appear to have done anything illegal or unethical either, though he does seem to have demonstrated a talent for creating partnerships with people who ended up going to jail:
The Recarey case illustrates aspects of Bush's business record that are likely to resurface as he moves closer to a campaign for president. Time and again, he benefited from his family name and connections to land a consulting deal or board membership, sometimes doing business with people and companies that would later run afoul of the law.
The way this apparently works is that when you're the relative of an important political figure, you go to people and say, "Though I have no particular skills, I am looking for business opportunities." And they say to you, "Oh, your father is the president! How about if we put you on our board and pay you a large amount of money, for which you can, I don't know, help us get business or something." And you reply, "Sounds great - I'm a businessman now!"
Ah, the American meritocracy in action. Although we'll no doubt be learning more about Jeb's career as a job-creator, from what we know so far this seems to be what much of that career consisted of: people giving him positions whether he had any experience in their field or not, so that he could use his name to open doors. I'm guessing that when he's asked about this, Jeb will say he made his own way without any help from anyone, just like any good capitalist does, and he can use all that business savvy and know-how he developed to help super-charge America's economy.
I can't particularly blame him. I'd like to think that if I was a president's son I'd find a field where I could really make it on my own merit. But who can really say? Perhaps Jeb believes that if his name were Jeb Blursh that he would have been just as successful as a businessman. I'd love to hear someone ask him and see what he says.
