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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 11, 2008 / 4 Adar II 5768

Hide and seek

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The campaign manager for Sen. Barack Obama has a point. David Plouffe wants Hillary Clinton to release her income tax returns for the last several years and couple that with a speedier process for releasing papers from the Clinton White House years. That's so voters will be able to judge whether Mrs. Clinton's claims of experience are justified by what she says she did as a virtual "co-president."


Plouffe told reporters last week that Mrs. Clinton is "one of the most secretive politicians in America today." Who would disagree, other than Mrs. Clinton? There does seem to be some inconsistency, if not outright duplicity. On one hand, we are supposed to accept at face value that she is, as former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski is said to have once called her, "the smartest woman in the world." On the other hand, we are to think nothing of her inability to find records, or produce records in a timely fashion, or get records released from the Clinton Presidential Library.


One would think that if the records validated her claim of experience in being part of so many international and domestic policy decisions, she would rush to produce documents that back up those claims. And if her income tax returns contain nothing that could cause embarrassment, those, too, should be coming off the copying machine at Kinko's to be handed out to reporters.


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The Clintons have always had a fascination with money and how to make more of it. According to Forbes.com, on his 1986 return, "Bill Clinton deducted $6 for three pairs of underwear and $75 for a suit with ripped pants given to the Salvation Army." Neither Clinton has to worry about money now, but the country ought to know where the millions they have vacuumed up in recent years came from, and if that money has strings attached.


Last week, The Washington Times reported that in May 2006 (the spring before his wife began her campaign for the White House) Bill Clinton made "$700,000 for his foundation by selling stock he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government." Mr. Clinton had received the non-publicly traded stock from Accoona Corporation in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. His windfall came when he sold the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed (naturally) buyer. Clinton got $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars in losses.


Perhaps Mrs. Clinton should start invoking her husband's name when she criticizes CEOs for their golden parachutes, as they flee sinking companies or layoff employees. Too bad Mr. Clinton wasn't among those testifying before a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing last week about huge salaries and bonuses paid to corporate CEOs, while their employees suffer layoffs.


In a related story, USA Today reports archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking release of hundreds of pages of White House papers related to pardons approved by the former president. These include clemency documents for the fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.


There are the familiar explanations — there always are with the Clintons — about why they can't be more forthcoming with documents and records. When asked about her tax returns during a recent debate, Mrs. Clinton said she hadn't gotten it done yet because she's "a little busy right now." The question was not about the 2007 return, but those from previous years. Surely those earlier returns are available, or have they been misplaced like disappearing documents at the Rose Law Firm, which magically materialized in the White House residence after Ken Starr and a Senate committee subpoenaed them?


As for the documents at the Clinton Presidential Library, both Clintons say they have asked the library to release materials as quickly as possible. But when the Clintons' agent, former Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey, chooses not to review the withheld documents, it makes one question their sincerity.


This game of they hide while everyone else seeks is familiar to all Clinton observers. Barack Obama should take advantage of the questions of character that have always been asked of the Clintons and the public doubts about their honesty and sincerity in anything that does not promote their personal, political and financial interests.

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JWR contributor Cal Thomas is co-author with Bob Beckel, a liberal Democratic Party strategist, of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America". Comment by clicking here.

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