You think that is

In today's Wall Street Journal, Joe Flint and John Harwood report yet another Clinton scandal: Before he left office, Clinton intervened in a contract dispute that producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason had with CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves. Moonves is a Clinton friend, but the Thomasons are, of course, much closer Clinton friends. Thomason's beef was that CBS had failed to fork over a penalty fee of more than $1 million for not airing a Thomason-developed comedy series starring Janine Turner called The Good Life during the 1996-97 television season. A penalty fee is a little bit like a golden parachute. A television producer with one or more big hits under his belt is often in a position to write into his contract that the network must pay him a huge penalty fee if it fails to air his show. The idea is that the network will not want to write a fat check and will instead put the show on the air. The problem is that the networks frequently welsh on the deal. Or, as the Journal piece delicately puts it: Networks often seek to defer paying penalty fees.

Clinton phoned Moonves to discuss the unpaid penalty fee. Shortly thereafter, CBS forked over most of the fee to Thomason. It really is an inappropriate use of presidential power to get involved in a personal financial dispute, former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta told the Journal. I think that crosses the line. Chatterbox agrees. Unlike, say, John Kennedy's famous jawboning with the steel industry to keep prices down, this intervention doesn't touch on anything even vaguely resembling the public interest. And there's a creepy, Godfather-like feel to it. If CBS had refused to pay off Thomason, would Moonves have woken up the next day with a horse's head in his bed?

My note:  Get real.  If you think President's haven't used cronyism through the years, where have you been!   And remember, these very same Thomasons, PRODUCERS, are the ones Clinton created the Travelgate scandal for so he could put them in there.  Hollywood producers running the WH travel office.. yeah, that makes sense.

• Falsified Bush Bio approved by Harriet Miers? - Lilly
  • Miers - gt
    • You think that is - Cronyism!
      • didnt try to make this post political - gt
      • I don't think the phone call to CBS was a big deal....sm - Democrat

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