September 5, 2007

Fund Raising Corruption in the Land of Second Chances

By Clarice Feldman
"Is this a great country, or what?" was the not terribly original opener with which a politician of my acquaintance regularly began his stump speeches decades ago. And the news this week on the campaign fundraising trail proves he was right. A man (Mr. Norman Hsu) can be a convicted felon on the lam for 15 years from a guilty plea (which warrants as much as a three year jail term), have his name and face appear in countless news articles as a key fundraiser with no end of prominent Democrats including Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, and no one charged with enforcing the bench warrant knew where he was. After going on the lam, he could leave this country and return and still remain under the radar. In fact, even though his ex-wife is an Alameda, CA probation office employee, no one had a clue where he was. The guilty plea was entered in a San Mateo County courthouse and yet the Democrat politicians in next door San Francisco took his money with no idea that he was an...(Read Full Article)