Both the Paw family and Mr. Hsu have denied that he reimbursed any of the Paws for their contributions to Democrats.

What problems do you think, Bringiton, that Al Gore had with John Huang? You are aware, I hope, that the entire imbroglio about the Buddhist Temple where Gore was supposed to be complicit in an illegal fundraiser was nothing more nor less than a smear that worked because the SCLM was too lazy to find out what actually happened, including the fact that there would have been nothing illegal if there had been a fundraiser there?

I agree that the right won't let facts get in the way of a good old-fashioned smear, but we shouldn't help them by being imprecise in how we word our own response.

I thought it was unforgivable for Obama to make a reference to the Lincoln bedroom nonsense. Would that this administration had limited themselves to such marginalia. Instead, we have an administration who has governed exclusively on the basis of what is best for its contributors; our entire government has been restructured and retooled to meet the wish lists of corporate America, the religious right, the defense and energy industry, and if that meant ignoring every piece of environmental legislation of the last forty years, or pretending that separation of church and state isn't really a constitutional principle, so be it.

What I do think is fair game is for all of us to weigh Mrs. Clinton's inevitable vulnerability to this kind of smear tactics, and how difficult it is to combat because it is based on years of such smears which have been deposited in multiple layers in the minds of too many Americans.

I've always felt that Clinton's greatest vulnerability was the reality that her win would mean four presidencies divided between two families. Couple that with the scandal exhaustion many Americans will feel when they are reminded of those eight years of Bill Clinton, even though except for Monica, they were all faux scandals, and I have real doubts about just how electable Hillary Clinton really is.

On the other hand, when we raise this question, please let us not repeat the tropes of rightwing propaganda.

BTW, according to Jeralyn at TALKLEFT, that fifteen year old charge that may make Hsu a fugitive came about during a bankruptcy proceeding. Through his lawyer, Mr. Hsu states he doesn't remember any such agreement, and as Jeralyn points out, it is quite possible he didn't understand what he was agreeing to. That would explain why there is no evidence, as yet, that he ran away, hid, etc.

We'll have to see what it's all about, but let's not prejudge.

What we should be using all of these fund raising problems to press home is the need for publicly financed elections.

the republican ranks are so stuffed with violent, despicable, reprobate demons i can hardly care about some fundraiser's bankruptcy 15 years ago. really, this smells like SCLM propaganda.

This is just penny-ante stuff, though of course our famously free press may eat it up. (I thought at once of the stories on the Gore Buddhist thing, whose details escape me.)

We essentially airdropped billions in cash over Iraq, and lost a good many of them. Somehow. Not to mention the weapons we sold on the black market. That's just out of control. Not to mention the contracting, which is way out of control.

And here, we're talking tens of thousands, right? It's all at the human scale of corruption and double dealing and general seediness. Less power to them!

We need to scale back the thievery to Boss Tweed proportions, from the cosmic scale such things have attained under the Conservative kleptocracy.

I applaud Hillary for taking the first steps in that direction.

(I grant you this is not a perspective that will be shared on many Op-Ed pages...)

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Since when does the Right need truth to work with except a small bit as a starting point? The buzz here is that there was a plea deal, Hsu knew exactly what he signed, and then disappeared for a while like the rest of the Chinese PRC money people. Why he shows up again is a puzzler and yes there will be more to sort out, but what there is smells to high heaven and will provide talking points for "proof of corruption" for the MSM, see, they're both the same, everyone's corrupt, why care, why change?

On a scale of one to a trillion this will be as big as MSM and the VRWC makes it out to be, the scale of criminality under Bush is so huge that for most people all proportion has been lost.

The reason this story and the Huang connection matters is that the money and the contacts are tied in to both the PRC government and Chinese-based organized crime. Call me old fashioned but I prefer my politically connected large scale criminal enterprises to be home-grown, not imports.

Mr. Paw is a US mail carrier. He's also not poor. he makes more than $46,000 a year, and his three children are grown.

Hsu's lawyer offered the WSJ reporter, in the presence of it's editor the opportunity to look at both the Paw's financial records, including those of their grown kids, all of whom contributed money to the total that the Journal quoted as being what the parents had contributed on their own, if the Journal would consider not publishing the story. The answer was no, no matter what either Hsu or Paws offered. Nor did the Journal make any attempt to research in any detail what the adult children do or the exact nature of their incomes. And the reporter only quoted a portion of Hsu's lawyer's letter, leaving out all information that might cast doubt on their story.

Lambert, I agree with your distinction between wholesome, old-fashioned graft, but please, can't we use that for Republicans; it's been a long time since Democrats have had grafters on the scale of a Lyndon Johnson in his Texas days.

Just so everyone is clear, I don't want Hillary to be our candidate.

Norman Hsu was a bit player back in John Huang’s glory days, see this link for one connection (http://www.senate.gov/~govt-aff/12.pdf, long PDF, specific connection is at the very end, page 32, and more information at http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/18.pdf.) I know these are Republican majority committee reports but my purpose in referencing them is not to condemn the Democrats or Clinton or Gore but to establish by public record the association between Huang and associates and the PRC including intelligence agencies.

Eighteen months as foreperson of a Federal grand jury investigating organized crime and you get to meet the most interesting characters. West Coast cities, from LA to SF to Portland to Vancouver have been gateways for Chinese criminal gangs since the 1800’s and still are, lots of petty stuff like extortion and gambling and drugs but also a lot of big time money laundering and acquisition of legitimate businesses as fronts. The PRC uses the gangs as points of infiltration for their own purposes, a long-term policy that has as its goal the set up of PRC-owned businesses with government contracts used to extract US military and technological secrets.

When the other big names disappeared in the fallout from the Huang affair the next tier of operators down, including people like Hsu, stepped in. They operate as the interface between PRC interests and Hong Kong based criminal gangs and investments in the US. Some of what they do is legitimate. Some is not. The web of families, friends and business associates facilitates moving money and ownership in a way that is difficult to trace. The system has its own language, like the Sicilian mobs – “friends” are people who are in on the deal operationally, whatever it is, and will stay in the deal; “associates” are in on the deal for a specific purpose for money, and may come and go; “family” is the most important tie, people who can be trusted to go to jail if needed to keep secrets.

It may be that Hsu is simply a legitimate success story who back in 1990 just happened to raise $1million from investors to import latex gloves and then somehow there were no gloves and no buyers for the phantom gloves and surprise, no more million dollars either and then he just innocently wandered off after unknowingly signing a plea deal with jail time and somehow thereafter with no resources and as a wanted man legitimately turned himself into a successful businessman with high grade political contacts. It’s possible.

And it may be that the Paws are also wholly innocent people, who with no background in civic activism suddenly had an inspiration to donate over $200,000 to politicians and political parties. But Hsu is a lot more than a casual friend to the Paws, having been in business with son Winkle who by his own account has done quite well with his investments, and used the Paw family home as a mail drop while he was doing whatever he was doing instead of surrendering to authorities in California for his swindle plea (full LA Times article here). It may be that the Paws were encouraged to make the donations as a payback for past and future business opportunities and patronage, one hand washes the other sort of thing. Is there a point-by-point trail of evidence from the PRC to Hsu or the Paws and these political contributions? No. But it’s the same methodology that has been used before, with some of the same players. What there is right now is lots of smoke and a very bad smell.

Goddess knows that in the overall scope of campaign and government behaviors, this amount of money is small potatoes. I haven’t suggested at all that Bill Clinton or Al Gore or Hillary Clinton or the Democratic Party are involved with or cognizant of any criminality. Man hands you a big check, you say thank you and keep moving; that’s how it works. My point in posting is that there are vulnerabilities for Democrats as well as Republicans, with Republicans in the media focus now for petty hypocrisy rather than the enormous criminality they’ve committed. This money connection may prove to be an embarrassment for Hillary if it gets legs, and distract the public conversation further away from where anyone on the Left, including me, would like it to be.

Does it really matter in the long term at all? Only if you care about a burgeoning Chinese crime presence in America and its attempts to gain influence with politicians and government, in collusion with PRC infiltration of our top-secret military and technology infrastructure. Not much, I’ll grant you, compared to the tittilation of toilet stall sex but it bothers me, down the list a ways right in the moment but still it bothers me.

Granted, only 2 of the 13 Republicans vulnerable to scandal made the list because of sex stuff (Vitter; Craig), but (1) I'll take the two, and (2) there's an entire industry that's been built up over the years feeding on this stuff, and it's a huge part of the VRWC. So, the sooner we can starve that beast, the better. And nothing like a little mockery and ridicule to claw back the Deference these guys are so undeservedly given.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Thought I was clear on the focus of my comments as being on MSM, not here at Corrente or anywhere on the Left, after all the hypocrisy and gay-bashing from the Right and especially people like Craig a whole heap of mockery and laughter from the Left is well deserved. It is the fixation of the MSM on stuff like this to the exclusion of more weighty matters I was bitching about.

Here’s a sterling sample of MSM coverage, with open approval of beating someone up for making a homosexual overture:

http://wonkette.com//politics/laramie-pr...

Tucker Carlson, (wearing a long tie instead of the bow, no symbolism there) talks about his own toilet sex experience, much nervous laughter and gayness denial from Scarborough and Abrams.

Living around SF, can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve been hit on by gay men and I’m neither good looking nor do I give off gay vibes. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always taken it as a compliment, not an offense. What exactly is the difficulty with saying “No”, giving private thanks that someone finds something to be physically desirable and moving on with life? And Tucker Carlson of all people citing physical violence and claiming extreme repugnance to prove he isn’t gay? Please. Talk about somebody who's light in their loafers.

“Meanwhile, in other news…..Oh wait, times up, more on the Craig controversy in the next segment where we will once again not report on anything actually meaningful.”

Like:

Not much, I’ll grant you, compared to the tittilation of toilet stall sex but it bothers me, down the list a ways right in the moment but still it bothers me.

Not ironic? My mistake.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan

Perhaps I was not, but absolutely nothing untoward intended at Corrente. I don't see titillation in the Corrente posts or comments at all; amusement, hysterical laughter, mockery, yep, plenty of those, good clean fun if a little mean but what the hell Craig's a jerk and a mean jerk at that so a little payback is justified.

My take, from watching far more than I wanted of shame-faced giggling and head-ducking and mouth-covering and seat-shifting is that a whole lot of the talking heads are getting some sort of pleasurable, sexually charged thrill out of being able to talk about sex on the air. Same thing happened during Clinton/Lewinsky. Altogether a different beast than laughing at Craig’s hypocrisy and deceit, which has been the focus here. For instance, reading MJS’ lyrics I gathered he was laughing a lot but I did not sense he was in any way titillated.

when I said we need to keep an eye out for the Inquisition.
It's not "the left" so much even.

Ken Starr groupies on the 24/7 cable gnews redux, I'm so NOT looking forward to.

We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!-- Xan