Let the sun shine

A really fascinating, in the sense of revealing, article, When Her Family Needed Money, Hillary Clinton Faced Stark Choices by Amy Chozick. The mainstream media, in their capacity as Democrats with bylines, have been going all out to report negatively on Trump (though he gives them a lot of assistance) and positively on Clinton. They all recognize that one of the main issues for Clinton is that the public do not trust her and see her as part of the corrupted elite.

In addition to giving her extra press, kid glove treatment, and burying negative press, they are apparently busy also trying to humanize her. Make her relatable. Fair enough. That is what campaign operatives do, even if they are part of the press.

What is fascinating to me is how hard that becomes in the age of the internet. Well, to be fair, Clinton's very nature makes it hard anyway but the internet makes it harder still. Let's look at some examples. In this article, the reporter is trying to make the case that Hillary Clinton's passion for money originates in hardships early in her marriage with Bill Clinton and the uncertainty of income flow. That looks like a weak reed to lean on, but let's see where she goes with it.

In 1981, after two years as Governor, Bill Clinton lost his reelection bid.

But his wife had a more pressing concern: money. The ousted governor needed a job, the family needed a place to live, and moving out of the governor’s mansion meant losing the help they had as they raised their 9-month-old daughter, Chelsea.

OK. Young professional couple. Loss of income owing to job loss. Money worries. Almost everyone has been there. Nothing out of the ordinary and a good start to the narrative of "just folks."

A couple of paragraphs later, suddenly the rehabilitative narrative takes an accidental, and apparently unconscious, swerve.

Hillary Clinton’s relationship with money has long puzzled even some of her closest supporters: Despite choosing a life in government, she has appeared eager to make money, driven to provide for her family and helping amass a fortune of more than $50 million with her husband.

Well that doesn't help. And not the Fox Butterfield formulation, "Despite" instead of the more appropriate "Because of."

Yes, everyone has worried that Hillary Clinton has shown too much interest in lining her pocket rather than serving the public. Or, in the fashion of Chavez in Venezuela, lining your pocket while "serving" the public. We know that her relationship to money is that of wanting more. Did they have to bring that up? And how on earth do you amass a fortune of $50 million when your career has been primarily as a public servant? Even under the tutelage of such masters as Harry Reid (Democratic Minority Leader in the Senate, net worth circa $5 million, all from his public career), $50 million is quite a number.

But is that $50 million number sounding low? I had thought I had heard figures in the $100 million range. Using that thing called the internet and that tool called Google Search, it seems like most sources agree that the combined Bill and Hillary family fortune is on the order of $110 million. Assets in Hillary Clinton's own name do seem below $50 million but the NYT article specifies the amount "with her husband" which by most published accounts appears to bring the total into the range of $100 million.

Chozick seems to be raising questions about the accuracy of her own reporting while at the same time bringing more attention to the fact that the Clintons have a net worth greater than the GDP of the entire country of Tuvalu.

What next? Well, let's let Chozick establish the obvious. In addition to being greedy and amassing a fortune under questionable circumstances,

Mrs. Clinton can seem blind to how her financial decisions are viewed, and has suffered repeated political damage and accusations of conflicts of interest as a result — from serving on the corporate board of Walmart while her husband was governor to initially accepting a $1.35 million mortgage personally secured by a top fund-raiser for the family’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home.

Her collection of more than $21 million in speaking fees from a range of groups, including Wall Street firms and other interests, led to one of the most potent attacks against her in this election cycle, given voters’ anger about economic inequality. Half of all voters said it bothered them “a lot’’ that Mrs. Clinton gave numerous speeches to Wall Street banks, according to a Bloomberg Politics poll conducted in June.

Donald J. Trump has called Mrs. Clinton “totally owned by Wall Street.”

Come on Chozick - this isn't the article we sent you out to write. Where's the human angle?

But her longtime friends say the contradiction is rooted in Mrs. Clinton’s practicality and the boom-and-bust cycles that have characterized her life with Bill Clinton.

Oh, OK. Let's see where this takes us.

At no time did those stresses fall more squarely on Mrs. Clinton’s shoulders than in the difficult two-year period in Arkansas when she and her husband found themselves cast out of office, financially strained and deeply uncertain about the future. And the memory of that time shaped her desire to be free from financial burden.

“Hillary had a couple years of the taste of what it means to be a working mother, without any help, to have to take care of a small baby and care for your job,” said James B. Blair, a close Clinton friend and lawyer who offered Mrs. Clinton investment advice in the 1970s.

All right. That's more like it. She's human after all. She did have a couple of hard years. In fact, for two years, like 71% of all mothers, she balanced work and family obligations. But is Blair really a close Clinton friend? Perhaps, but look at what he's saying. Paraphrased, he's observing that her hardship was to live like other people. If you are concerned about Hillary Clinton being owned by Wall Street, isolated from the lives of real Americans, and rampant insider elite cronyism where living a normal American life is a hardship sufficient to justify shady financial dealings and an overwhelming interest in using political position to amass fortune, then perhaps Chozick isn't doing as good a job at providing cover as she was meant to.

This was developing so nicely as a humanizing article but Chozick again loses control of the narrative.

The Clintons’ unexpected ouster from their comfortable life occurred at a time when Arkansas was swirling with new money and get-rich-quick schemes as companies like Tyson and Walmart minted millionaires and new savings and loan institutions were spreading throughout the South.

A generation of Ivy League-educated young people, like Mr. Clinton, had returned to their home state to make their mark. Money seemed to be all around the Clintons, but they did not have much of their own.

Oh, so the problem wasn't so much with money in general. The problem was that they weren't keeping up with the Joneses. Oh no. Come on Chozick, you can do better than make her sound like a money grubbing chancer. Let's get back to some more of that common-man suffering thing. Later in the article, Chozick seems to make it even worse and even more explicit that the problem was never income, it was that others were getting richer, faster.

Arkansas was a small state with overlapping circles of the politically and economically powerful — and many of the Clintons’ contemporaries were getting rich.

Just how rough did it get after being evicted from the Governor's mansion in January of 1981? Glad you asked.

It was one of the smallest houses on the block in Little Rock’s Hillcrest section, and Mrs. Clinton largely bought it with her own money, the month after that devastating 1980 election loss.

She filled the rooms with mismatched furniture bought at thrift stores and borrowed from her flamboyant mother-in-law. She converted the windowed attic into a bedroom for Chelsea, parked her Oldsmobile Cutlass in the weedy driveway, and chased after the family’s cocker spaniel, Zeke, who liked to chew through the fence.

The Clintons had stretched their finances to afford the $112,000 home, which was down the hill from the city’s old-money mansions. The sprawling estate of Winthrop Rockefeller, the celebrated former governor, was so close that it practically cast a shadow on the Clintons’ grassy backyard.

Friends described the décor as unsightly, a jarring departure from the governor’s mansion.

“That couch just jumped out at me,” said Bobby Roberts, a former aide to Mr. Clinton, describing a scarlet-colored Victorian chaise that Mr. Clinton’s mother, Virginia Kelly, had lent them. “It was in some bright, violent color.”

A jarring departure from the governor's mansion indeed after that devastating election loss. OMG, down the hill from the city's old-money mansions AND a scarlet-colored Victorian chaise? How did they survive?

Alright. Enough of the mockery. At least for the moment. This is the part I find interesting because the NYT and Chozick clearly are trying to paint a sympathetic portrait of Hillary Clinton and create a human-interest narrative that can serve as an excuse or some sort of cover for her venal greed. For all my mocking, if you read only the words and don't look at the numbers, they have at least the skeleton of a story.

But what do the numbers say?

Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

Oh, no. Sorry, that's what the fox says.

The numbers say something completely different.

January 1981 is presumably when Bill Clinton ceases to be paid by the taxpayers. From elsewhere in the article, we know that in 1975 when they moved to Little Rock, they were earning $36,000. In today's dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that is the equivalent of $161,000. Not bad for an out of the way state capital of a smaller state. According to the Census Bureau that put them in the top ten percent of income earners in the US. Not bad for a newlywed couple without children.

By 1978, when he was elected governor, they were earning $51,173 (of which she accounted for $17,654). Their family income in today's equivalent dollars was $189,000. That's a more than respectable amount in Little Rock, Arkansas with its dramatically lower cost of living.

We don't know how much Hillary Clinton was earning at the law firm in January 1981. Presumably more than the $17,564 when Bill Clinton was elected. Indeed, the year following his election in 1979, her law firm promoted her to Partner. That is an astonishingly rapid promotion given that she only joined the firm in 1977. Let's assume that they were still paying her roughly $18,000 in January of 1981 when Bill Clinton became unemployed. That is still the equivalent of $48,000 today, just below the average household income.

Despite Chozick trying to characterize 1981 as a year of hard times though, the numbers keep slipping through. They didn't live on $18,000 in 1981. Bill Clinton immediately went to work for a close supporter and was paid $55,000. Their household income in 1981 therefore was $73,000 ($194,000 in today's money and in the top 6% of earners). Chozick's words say risk, uncertainty and poverty but the numbers say privilege, privilege, privilege.

Well, what about that sketchy house with the red Victorian chaise lounge? Google Maps or Zillow or anything like that gives you a quick sense of just how sketchy that neighborhood is. Sorry, but these are $450-600,000 homes (in Little Rock). This is a nice neighborhood. Granted, it isn't the governor's mansion but that's a pretty comfortable safety net.

Well, perhaps it wasn't then? Nope. The article says they paid $112,000 for the home in 1980. That's $328,000 in today's money. The average cost of a home in the US in 1980 was circa $75,000 so $112,000 was 50% more than the average. The sorry word picture isn't matching the much rosier numbers picture.

Besides that, the down payment shouldn't have been a problem in 1980. The article gently treats the Hillary Rodham cattle futures controversy which Wikipedia is more forthright about. Hillary Clinton, starting with a $1,000 dollar investment and with no experience in commodities trading, made, in nine months, $100,000 under the guidance and tutelage of a number of Little Rock financial traders and insiders. Opponents have long held that this was a $100,000 bribe later disguised as commodity trading. The statistical odds of $100,000 profit on a $1,000 investment in commodities trading certainly makes that a more likely explanation. As the circumstances of the $100,000 benefit only became public after the expiration of the statute of limitations, there is no means of knowing what the real explanation might have been.

Regardless, in July of 1979, Hillary Clinton pocketed $100,000 a few months before the Clinton's purchased their new $112,000 home in the fancy part of Little Rock in the shadow of the old money mansions.

Chozick paints a picture of financial challenges and difficulties. The numbers say that they were floating at the very top of the income league and doing very well out of the tight business and government community of Little Rock, Arkansas.

This is what I find fascinating. The Old Grey Lady wants to tell one story and puts out a sycophantic fluff job that tries to paint one picture but in the fashion of old style reporting. In doing so, however, they make it easy for anyone who is skeptical or curious to arrive at an entirely different picture. Checking the numbers on the internet was less than a ten minute exercise.

The internet combined with a modicum of curiosity tells a completely different story, making the Times look deceitful and Hillary Clinton possibly even worse.

Indeed, bad behavior keeps peeking out. Chozick accidentally highlights the money-grubbing and dubious origins of their initial foray into political offices combined with private sector dealings. But in providing human interest filler, she also adds more to the conflagration of Hillary Clinton's reputation. She reports, presumably from friends:

And with no parents or in-laws in Little Rock, Mrs. Clinton turned to friends and neighbors for help. She persuaded Carolyn Huber, who had helped run the governor’s mansion while Mr. Clinton was in office, to continue to help care for Chelsea, who had grown fond of her.

A neighbor, Manuel J. Lozano, recalled: Hillary “was running around, and my wife took care of Chelsea here and there whenever she needed help.”

"Persuaded?" That's an odd word choice. Induced, forced, arm-twisted? Those are the words that come to mind.

Chozick is portraying Clinton as busy plumbing the intricate financial networks and intersecting interests of Little Rock for financial gain sufficient to keep up with all the other young private sector yuppies who were making it rich and doing so by pawning her child off on neighbors and former employees. Yeesh. If this is Chozick's idea of a fawning article, I'd hate to see her hit job.

There are other disconnects. Chozick writes that in 1981 after Bill Clinton's electoral loss:

Friends said she would have focused on public service and charitable work and not gone to work at the firm — an old line practice known for representing the business and political elite in Arkansas — had it not been for her concern about her family’s finances.

This makes it sound like her first choice in line of "work" was to do good deeds and give away money and if only it hadn't been for that wastrel of a husband, that's what she would have done. Instead, she had to work for a living at a white shoe law firm that was plugged in to all the powers, financial and otherwise. It's really hard to reconcile this with any good narrative.

And remember, this is the 1981-1982 dwelling in the financial desert while Bill Clinton was out of office. In 1982 he was again elected to the governor's office which he retained till 1992 when he ran for the presidency. Or, as Chozick puts it:

She would, however, continue to shoulder her family’s financial worries.

Not long after Mr. Clinton won re-election in 1982, the Clintons sold the yellow house on Midland Street and moved back into the governor’s mansion, where they once again enjoyed free housing and the assistance of a small staff.

Two years later, the state increased the governor’s term to four years, and the Clintons’ finances appeared more stable. Mrs. Clinton went on to join the board of Walmart, and she continued to work at the Rose Law Firm. By the time Mr. Clinton was running for president, they reported $297,177 in total income on their 1992 tax returns, a sum that would put most Americans in the upper income tier, but seemed meager compared with the wealth of his opponents, George Bush and Ross Perot.

$297,177 in 1992 is $511,000 today. The top 0.5% of income earners. Public service is good to the finances of our elected officials.

The bottom line of the article is that the NYT tried to create a picture of a strong woman carrying the financial burden of her family while her husband suffered a very temporary career setback. By providing a checkable framework, they instead highlight a lot of questionable financial dealings and sorry behaviors. Hillary Clinton comes across as an amoral, venal money-grubber, questing to keep up with those who were earning their incomes in the private sector and willing to do anything, no matter how unseemly, to achieve her goal, not of financial self-sufficiency, but of financial munificence.

That detail about fobbing her child off onto stay-at-home neighbor moms and imposing on former employees is the detail of the article that most makes me wince.

The silver lining is that, with the internet and ever more powerful search tools, there is ever greater possibility of alternate views and indeed, the truth, coming out. Regardless of party or politician. Transparency will be better for our whole system of government. It can't come too soon. All these old bad behaviors of the political elite and the self-abnegation and degradation of the media are symptoms that, hopefully, some informational sunshine will cure.