Oh, this is fascinating reading: come for the problematical Haitian gold mine, stay for the exquisitely careful attempts of the Washington Post to needle Hillary Clinton about her brother Tony Rodham without looking like they’re needling her. Basically, what appears to have happened here is that Rodham – a man who has admittedly spent a good of time and effort in a quest to monetize the fact that his sister married a former President* – was given a nice little board membership (and, more importantly, stock options) on said mine by VCS Mining.  The CEO of that company (Angelo Viard) swears up and down that this wasn’t because Billy Carter Tony Rodham is the brother of Jimmy Carter Hillary Clinton: as you might imagine, I fully endorse Andrew Stiles‘ snort of disbelief.

Why?  Well, according to the WaPo (which is also snorting in disbelief, albeit more quietly) the mine is: controversial because of the potential environmental damage**; a bit of a political football in Haiti; and in need of some potent patronage. You must simply forgive people for looking at that, then looking at Tony Rodham, then looking resigned at what it all means.  Especially if you note – again, like the Washington Post did – that the Clintons enjoy a good deal of political influence in Haiti, thanks to the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.

Where, hey, Tony Rodham and Angelo Viard first met.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: It’s not the lying. It’s the stupid lying. It’s especially the stupid lying when there’s no real need to. As far as anybody can tell, none of this is actually illegal; it’s merely tawdry, embarrassing, and vaguely trash behavior. OK, it’s trash behavior with a multi-million dollar budget, but trash behavior all the same. And nobody’s looking forward to having to run stories like these about the Clintons – and their tawdry, embarrassing, and vaguely trashy court – for any longer than they absolutely have to.

*I don’t normally say this, but: you gotta read this guy’s Wikipedia article.  This guy has an amazing nose for being in on exactly the sorts of not-quite-illegal-but-definitely-shameless deals that make the American public so cynical about our governing class.

**This is not actually ridiculous. While gold mining techniques are better today than in the days when they used mercury in the process, those techniques may not be available – or simply cost too much – in Third World nations.  Like, say, Haiti. I frankly would not walk into a hypothetical Haitian gold mine without a rebreather and something to cover my skin and hair.