A couple of years ago Bill Clinton gave a one-hour speech to the perfume industry’s trade association. Afterward he stuck around to take a few questions:
In an answer to a question after the speech, Mr. Clinton said he didn’t wear cologne, prompting audible gasps in the room, according to Women’s Wear Daily.
Now that’s some fine investigative reporting. It comes in the middle of a story about how Bill Clinton made money from the speech, and then, a while later, cunningly allowed a fragrance supplier to contribute a bunch of money to the Clinton Foundation in Haiti to set up a project that helps Haitian farmers plant lime trees (apparently limes are a key ingredient for perfumes). It’s honestly not clear what the problem is with this, and author James Grimaldi admits that Clinton “has given so many speeches to companies and groups in recent years, and the Clinton Foundation has collected donations from so many corporations and organizations, that this kind of overlap seems almost inevitable.” Nevertheless, he concludes that this incident “represents the kind of overlapping of private and charitable interests that has become a political liability for his wife as she runs for office.”
Okey doke.
