Sunday, March 23, 2008
Opinion
Clinton's missing tax returns
There is no good answer
Hillary Clinton speaks on her policies for the war in Iraq at George Washington University in Washington, DC, on March 17.
CREDIT: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
By Arianna Huffington
It's hard out there for a surrogate. Especially for a Clinton surrogate being asked why Hillary Clinton has not released the last eight years of her tax returns. As Clinton surrogate Congresswoman Nita Lowey made clear on "Meet The Press" last weekend, the reason it's so hard to give a good answer to "Why hasn't Clinton released her returns?" is because there is no good answer.
Lowey gave it a shot, but it wasn't pretty—or particularly intelligible. When Tim Russert asked about the returns, she opened with the main talking point the Clinton campaign has been using for weeks: "It's my understanding that there are 20 years of tax returns in the public view from both Bill and Hillary Clinton."
And she's exactly right. There are 20 years worth of returns that have been released. What's missing are the last eight years—years in which Bill Clinton has been making money hand over fist, and involving himself in all kinds of interesting financial deals (see Ron Burkle, Yucaipa, and the ruler of Dubai).
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly paired herself with John McCain as of late, making the case that they are candidates with a "lifetime of experience," so it seems appropriate that her refusal to release her tax returns is another thing they have in common.
While Clinton has been tossing verbal bouquets to McCain and attacking Obama for not being "vetted," Obama has been living up to his promises about making government more transparent. Not only did he release his latest tax returns in April 2007, he also just made public his list of earmarks, and sat down at the end of last week with the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times to answer all their questions about Tony Rezko. The conclusion of the Tribune?
"Barack Obama now has spoken about his ties to Tony Rezko in uncommon detail. That's a standard for candor by which other presidential candidates facing serious inquiries now can be judged."
It's a standard not being met by either McCain or Clinton.
The main excuse we've gotten so far is that Hillary Clinton just has too much on her plate. "I'm a little busy right now," she said during the Ohio debate. "I hardly have time to sleep. But I will certainly work toward releasing, and we will get that done and in the public domain."
That was three weeks ago. Two weeks ago, Howard Wolfson promised that the returns would be released "on or around April 15." But weren't the returns completed and filed a long time ago?
As Andrew Sullivan notes, "Did they file an extension for the past few years? If they didn't, the forms are available now."
And it's not as if the Clintons have attempted to make a reasoned argument as to why the returns shouldn't be released—something about there being too much scrutiny of public officials. Instead, they've gone with Classic Clintonism: Envelope themselves in lofty, good-guy rhetoric while utterly failing to follow through. And then smearing their opponents, such as their absurd attack on Obama's campaign for "imitating Ken Starr."
The Clintons have obviously done very well during the Bush years—well enough that she was able to loan her campaign $5 million at a critical moment. Is it really Ken Starr-like to want to know where that money came from? Or to ask for a list of the donors who have contributed $500 million to her husband's library? Or to ask what her policy as president would be regarding the transparency of huge donations from foreign interests to her husband's charitable fund? (See the $31.3 million donation and additional $100 million pledge to Bill Clinton's foundation after he helped a Canadian mining mogul secure a massive uranium deal with Kazakhstan.)
In short, it's well past time for Hillary Clinton to be as "vetted" as she claims to already be - and to have this vetting done now by Democratic voters rather than later by GOP hit squads. SP