Proving that even “great communicators” die in their dotage.

The Clintons, Bill and Hill, don’t deserve a thing, yet they still scare up millions and millions and millions of dollars from those persons who want the Clintons to peddle influence.  Look: there is no other logical reason to throw dollars at the CankleMeister or the AgingSexAddict.  People don’t throw cash at the Clintons out of inherent goodness.  They expect a quid pro quo.

Bill said:

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: I don’t think there is anything sinister in trying to get wealthy people in countries which are seriously involved in development to spend their money wisely in a way that helps poor people, and lifts them up, I don’t think there is anything bad about it. I think it is good!

There has been a very deliberate attempt effort to take the Foundation down. And there are almost no new fact that is known now…

I don’t think I did anything that was against the interests of the U.S.

QUESTION: Do you understand though, the perception itself is the problem. You don’t?

No. I don’t want to get into the weeds here. I’m not responsible for anybody else’s perception. I asked Hillary and she said that no one has ever tried to influence me by helping you. No one has even suggested they have a shred of evidence about that.

Because, as Bill says, he still has “bills to pay.”

Oh yeah.  Horrible, horrible bills.

“I gotta pay our bills. And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.”

Right.  That’s Bill paying Bill, because Bill happens to write it off courtesy of the IRS.

But Bill Clinton says he’s not worried about the criticism, brushing it off as “political.” He quoted his wife as telling him: “No one has ever tried to influence me by helping you.”

He claimed there has been a “very concerted effort to bring the foundation down” and said he might even step down as its head if his wife is elected.

“I might if I were asked to do something in the public interest that I had an obligation to do. Or I might take less of an executive role,” he said. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

One thing he won’t stop doing: giving high-priced speeches, even though he acknowledges being a wealthy man these days, reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.

“I gotta pay our bills,” he said. “And I also give a lot of it to the foundation every year.”

The fees — $500,000 or more for 11 speeches while his wife was Secretary of State — are justified, he insisted.

“I spend a couple of hours a day just doing the research. People like to hear me speak,” he said.

“We do our best to vet them,” he said of the groups that pay for his talks. “And I have turned down a lot of them. If I think there’s something wrong with it, I don’t take it.”

He also says he has turned down donations to the foundation — though he won’t say from where.

Ah yes, those poor Clintons — poor in terms of cash, and poor in terms of people trying to drive them down.

I feel so sorry for them.

Don’t you?

BZ