Saturday, April 5, 2008

Only One

I never liked Richard M. Nixon and I never voted for him.
But the fact remains that Nixon was the last President to charge nothing for his public speaking appearances after he left the White House.
From the time he left the White House in 1974 until the time of his death in 1994, Nixon never charged a cent for his various speeches and lectures in all parts of the nation and throughout the world. And Nixon was a prolific speaker who always kept up with the issues of the day and was recognized by all as a foreign policy expert.
Nixon remains the only former President over the past 24 years to refuse to profit from his speaking engagements.
I mention this because the Clintons' just-released tax returns show that former President Bill Clinton has racked in $51 million from his speaking engagements since he left the White House in 2001. That's $51 million in little more than seven years - nearly 7.3 million per year or nearly $600,000 per month!
Bill Clinton can be a compelling speaker and goodness knows -- he LOVES to talk (especially about himself). But this is a helluva lot of money by anyone's standards.

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