Clinton's Global Initiative, Despite Controversy, Remains A Force For Good

For nearly two years, Bill Clinton's foundation and his work at the Clinton Global Initiative has hovered like an ominous cloud over his wife's political fortunes. In the Democratic primary, it was fodder for an embarrassing story about a Canadian mining financier who used Clinton to secure a backroom deal in Kazakhstan. Former Sen. Bill Bradley forcefully questioned whether the financial entanglements of the former president would be his wife's downfall.

When the election ended and the idea of Hillary at State began to crystallize, it was the matter of Bill's disclosures that remained a key sticking point. After it was decided that the Clinton Global Initiative would be restricted from holding events outside the United States and refuse contributions from foreign governments, that hurdle was overcome. But once Clinton made public some of his donors, questions once again swirled about conflicts of interest. Governments from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Australia and the Dominican Republic forked over millions upon millions of dollars, in addition to the controversial contractor Blackwater.

And yet, for all the intrigue and cynicism that CGI engenders, it is important to remember that it is also a force of good in the world. On Monday, the group released its end of the year report. And like year's past, the achievements are impressive.

• CGI's 2008 Annual Meeting brought together attendees including President-elect Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, President Hamid Karzai, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Queen Rania, Former President George H.W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Bill Gates, Bono, Wangari Maathai, Muhammad Yunus, Lance Armstrong and nearly 60 current and former heads of state.

• CGI's Commitments to Action from the 2008 Annual Meeting are expected to impact almost 160 million people.

• The launch of Clinton Global University, which brought together more than 600 students from nearly every state and 15 countries to Tulane University in New Orleans to formulate ways to take action on campuses, in communities, and across continents. Nearly 1,000 Commitments to Action were generated at the inaugural CGI U meeting.

• This month, CGI Asia convened leaders in Hong Kong to address local, regional, and global challenges focusing on education, health, and climate change. 67 Commitments to Action valued at nearly $200 million and projected to affect 10 million lives occurred at CGI Asia.

Comments

[partyofone]

Sam Stein is reporting the Clinton spin. Has any independent source verified the figures caculated by Clintons highly paid self-serving PR team? Have the Clintons ever been known to exagerate their accomplishments?

Much of waht the CGI claims as "impact" are "pledges" never monitored or implemented. Where is a third party, impartial report on the dollars spent, the work accomplished and the comparison to the inflated figures reported year after year with no verfication?

[Tulu]

Bill Clinton needs to rethink his role empowering dictators by accepting money from dictators and dictator ally businessmen. Example look at the big donor from Ethiopia Mahamoud Alamoudi. He looted the country's natuarl resources with the cooperation of the regime. It is a type of PONZI scheme.

http://ethiomedia.com/aurora/9440.html

http://en.ethiopianreporter.com/content/view/418/26/

[AnnfromCA]

The hubub over Clinton's organization as something "bad" makes virtually no sense.

[partyofone]

Does anyone believe what Bill Clinton says his Foundation and CGI have "accomplished." Lots of big numbers generated by a Madison Avenue PR firm, that also spun HIllary's claims of bullets in Bosnia and bringing Peace to Northern Ireland. The Clintons tend to inflate their accomplishments.

[janforgoodusfuture]

Well, money from Saudi Arabia and Quatar is primarily money that is recirculated from oil exports to the western world, primarily the US. It must be seen as good that this money is used well. There shuld be no gratitude felt from HRC to any of these states or any donor. State politics is something completely different.

[DontSpin]

On another note, I suggest you read this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-sedaei/on-abortion-pro-choice-is_b_152744.html

[MNmommy]

Surprise, surprise. It's a Clinton thread, and there's hatin' going on.

I'm shocked.

[partyofone]

Surprise surprise, the only defense ever put forward for the dishonest Clintons is that anyone who criticizes them is a "hater" and they are better than the Bushes. Too funny. They are the same as the Bushes, and like the Bushes, no one hates them, they just want the to GO AWAY.

[karela]

It would be a crime against humanity if political elements managed to shut down an organization that does so much good for so many people. It may, or may not be, true that Bill Clinton has helped some rich guys get good deals. But it is indisputably true that his efforts have improved the lives of tens of millions of people. We should remember that when we're tempted to get ugly. The men and women and children who have been helped matter. The mothers who can now care for their children because of AIDS medicine they received and the children who aren't in orphanages because their parents survived; These things matter. I don't know that Bill did anything wrong by introducing certain people to each other, but I wonder what I would do if the choice was between one rich guy getting a sweet deal or a hundred thousand people getting medicine they need to live? What would any of us do? Where are our priorities? In the movie "Schindler's List" the protagonist agonized in the last moments of the film because he hadn't sold his car too, because he could have used the money to buy more people out of the camps. Bill Clinton's foundation IS buying people out of the camps---the camps of death, hopelessness, illness and despair. We could spend more time talking about what's Right with Bill, because there is a lot to talk about. How many of us have done so much?

[partyofone]

And you know the Clinton Foundation does good because Bill Clinton and a slick annual report produced by his spin machine tells you how much good they have done. You can look at the Clintons bank account and see what Bill has accomplished.

[lisa010]

If global charity is funded from US sources, then Many think it's bad.

If global charity is funded from global sources, then Many think it's bad.

So what do you want? People are gonna cry no matter where the money comes if they don't like the Clintons. And if they didn't have a Charitable foundations they'd be chastised for that too.

Still FYI, The Clinton Foundation is a 4 star charity as rated at www.charitynavigator.org

How your Foundation and where does it rate?

[partyofone]

It the "pay to play" "quid pro quo" dollars for influence charcter of the Clinton Foundation that people are rejecting. Do you admire the Clintons for selling their influence for campaign donations and a mega million dollar personal fortune? Where did the $13 million the Clihtons loaned HIllary's campaign and then "forgave" actually come from? The Saudis?

[RAVEN13]

President Clinton has done what no other former president has done and that is give up
the names to his list of donors to his library. The CGI is a uniquely founded organization which
brings together not only the wealthiest but, anyone who wishes to make a difference with a more
modest comittment. Over the years, hundreds of millions of lives have been positively impacted
the world over by the CGI. The narrow political terms in which some persist to view, either Clinton does not afford understanding their deeply held belief to "make a difference and leave the world better
for having been a part of it". I admire the ability of SOS-elect Clinton and our former President to
move past their personal challenges, years ago. They've been together for 33 years and they are
stronger than ever. There is alot of love between them and from them for our country.

[GhostwriterDoF]

I don"t dispute that CGI or both of the Clintons have done some good things. Obviously, since so much opportunity has been lost to so many, we are in desperate need of such organizations all over the world. Looking at the sums money in this article speaking of 200 million raised to help 10 million people (20 mill/person costs?). It seems these are staggeringly high numbers, from one side of the fence.
But consider that to the people behind the CGI, even individuals, 200 million is pocket change, an amount they blow in a weekend at luxury casinos around the world. More money is spent on caviar at parties hosted by K-Street in Washington each year.

[partyofone]

They moved past their "personal challenges" to become mega millionaires by selling influence abroad, and mount the meanest, most dishonest, Rove-style Democratic primary campaign in American history. And you admire them for it?

[stell]

This story isn't sourced. Who was dispatched to do Slick's damage control?

[duze]

In reality how trusting and truthful is Bill Clinton? I don't care what he says on paper, someone should check the figures, check the friends and stop looking to him for any source of honesty.

[partyofone]

Sam Stein is quaterback for Team Hillary.

[stell]

Every good lie has an element of truth to it. Haven't they "donated" millions of their own taxable dollars to their own charities, so that presumably it can be laundered back through say a pharmaceutical effort to "lower" the cost of AIDS drugs? The Clintons do not lose. Clinton Inc. never loses. At the end of the day, they have admitted that their "charity" is only to create a better business environment for themselves and America. They are helped personally more than any of the sad sacks their "initiatives" are supposed to be helping. Where are the results? The cloud should remain there as it should be. Where there is smoke there is fire. Obama has proven himself to be not much better. I guess he thought that with the power of his personality he could change Mrs. Clinton and Slick Willie. They don't call him Slick Willie for nothin.

[karela]

"Where there's smoke, there's fire"???? The lives that have been harmed by those words are legion. It would make perfect sense for the Clintons to make charitable donations through their own charity because they believe in the work they're doing. Before you decide that AIDS medicine in Africa is no big deal, why don't you take some time and read interviews with some of the many women who are well enough to take care of their children now instead of being dead with their kids in orphanages? It is so easy to sit by your comfortable fire and say these efforts are wasted. Pray that you are never the one in need; the one whose children will suffer from want; the one who didn't get the darned pill that made all the difference-----because other people sat by their comfortable fires and said the guy who gave you the pill wasn't perfect enough. How many millions of lives have benefited from your efforts during the past eight years? And how many from mine? Bill Clinton isn't perfect by a long shot, but he still has done more good in the world than almost all of us. We should think about that before we throw the first stone.

[stell]

Every large business entity has a green and/or charitable arm.

[partyofone]

The Clintons "donated" $13 million of their own fortune to Hillary's campaign. But was it really foreign donations channelled as HUGE "speaking fees" for Bill Clinton. Does anyone believe they are paying Bill $400,000 to talk for 20 min? They are paying him for a lot more than a speech.

[ebbtide]

With all that is going on in this country, most especially the economy affecting millions of middle class people , why on earth do we see a whole article devoted to Bill Clinton? He is out of there, isn't he? Apparently not and there seems to be a desire to adore him and keep him in the spotlight when he offers nothing at all to today's crises. I often wonder about the blogs and the internett, which at one time, in it's beginnings, held the thoughts of extremely intelligent people . I Bill Clinton is now being made "news" when he is not, by the Huff post, in the same way the media attempt s to steer people toward one bent or another. Bill Clinton will continue to take over the spotlight from Obama and even from his own wife, who happens to be a legitimate appointee of Obama.

[partyofone]

Bill Clinton with the help of Robert Rubin helped to de-regulate the financial industry, actually signing the legislation that opened the door to the Wall Street abuses and melt down. As soon as he left office, Clinton began accepting HUGE "speaking and consulting" fees from the same international business interests who benefitte from the deregulation and in a few years has become a mega millionaire. Having failed to install his wife as President, he is now having her appointed $o$ so the Clinton, Inc. selling of influence can continue.

Bill and Hillary are a team, we have been told that for 20 years. Now we are suppose to believe that Bill won't be helping Hillary run the State Department as a fiedom?

[GhostwriterDoF]

Bill Clinton signed into law most of the deregulation policies that have undermined our economy and lead to the Crisis were are now experiencing. Especially with Healthcare. He is tightly tied to the Sr. Bush"s New World Order Corporate domination agenda. The fact that they are putting a leash on the CGI should tell you there is something not right under the surface.
Hillary now has a chance to separate herself from the corruption of their family legacy and redeem herself in the eyes of history. I have a feeling she will be a key part of undoing much of the damage he caused and leave behind a legacy of her own.

[lizziekw]

President Clinton is a better man than you.

[GhostwriterDoF]

lizziekw, If we are ever to be rid of corruption, we have to expose it where-ever it exits. Even if it means calling into question those who we embraced as our heroes. We can no longer afford to be blindly following these same people who continue to fail us.
Lan2, The Mortgage mess was just the "straw that broke the camel"s back". Does anyone honestly believe that corruption in our country is isolated to just Wall Street and Washington?
I say to everyone here, what good is laying blame? This isn"t about hating the Clintons or the Bushs, nor condemning wealth. This is about families that are homeless, a generation of college grads who are hopelessly in debt with few career prospects and mothers who are watching their children die because they were denied medical care. And all the while top executives are getting paid bonuses while retirees have their pensions reduced or taken away.
This is all a part of the backroom deals so some wealthy people can get a sweet deal.

[Lan2]

The deregulation, particularly regarding subprime mortgages for the disadvantaged, was signed into law at the end of Clinton's administration. The reasoning behind that deregulation was sound, but as with most loop holes, greedy people found and used them while equally greedy and/or duplicitous politicians in the Bush administration allowed the flagrant abuse of these loop holes to go unchecked. Blaming the economic debacle on Clinton is typical for the HP, but most Americans know the truth.

[partyofone]

And Bill Clinton has collected huge fees from grateful corporations who benefited from that deregulation. The Clintons went from crying about being million dollars in legal debt, to becoming mega millionaires in three years. When a bribe comes after the fact, is it called a kickback?

[lizziekw]

I love President Clinton. I was proud to work on both of his presidential campaigns. I was proud of him as our President for eight years. I am proud of his post-presidential work.

Let the whiners and the Republicans squawk and moan all they like - President Clinton is fantastic.

[partyofone]

Very interesting perspective. Mine is a little different.

Bill Clinton has become a reviled figure for many Americans who once admired him. He has forfeited the opportunity to become a senior statesman by selling his influence to the highest bidders for personal financial gain at the nation's expense. He abdicated his responsibility as a former president and leader of his party to conduct a mean-spiritied, self-interested, dishonest, damaging campaign against a Democratic candidate whose only offenses were aspiring to unite and lead the entire nation and challenging Mrs. Bill Clinton for the presidency.

Bill Clinton will go down in history as the president who had an affair with an intern, lied under oath, got Impeached, sold influence to become a mega millionaire, tried his best to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, and FAILED.

[edwarvir]

You cannot trust the Clintons. We need to see
some books to know for sure where this money
is coming from and going too. I don't trust them.