The Washington Post deserves credit for filing a Freedom of Information Act request to get details on Hillary Clinton’s very expensive lectures, but it’s fascinating when and where they decide to report on the results: tucked into the middle page A-2 on Thanksgiving Day.
It’s under a story titled “462,000 choose health plans as enrollment begins.” Talk about trying to hide your light under a bushel. The headline was “An inside look at a Clinton speech: E-mails show detailed requests for $300,000 talk at UCLA." Rosalind Helderman and Philip Rucker began:
When officials at the University of California at Los Angeles began negotiating a $300,000 speech appearance by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the school had one request: Could we get a reduced rate for public universities?
The answer from Clinton’s representatives: $300,000 is the “special university rate.”
Helderman and Rucker were careful to note that these massive sums are transferred to the Clinton Foundation, not Hillary’s wallet. “But critics have argued that the carefully staged events and high speaking fees could complicate Clinton’s ability to run a populist campaign built around the economic struggles of the middle class.” Then came the little diva details:
The documents show that Clinton’s representatives at the Harry Walker Agency exerted considerable control over her appearance and managed even the smallest details — from requesting lemon wedges and water on stage to a computer, scanner, and a spread of hummus and crudité in the green room backstage.
Top university officials discussed at length the style and color of the executive armchairs Clinton and moderator Lynn Vavreck would sit in as they carried on a question-and-answer session, as well as the kind of pillows to be situated on each chair. Clinton’s representatives requested that the chairs be outfitted with two long, rectangular pillows — and that two cushions be kept backstage in case the chair was too deep and she needed additional back support.
After a lengthy call with a Clinton representative, UCLA administrator Patricia Lippert reported to campus colleagues, “She uses a lavalier [microphone] and will both speak from the audience and walk around stage, TED talk style. We need a teleprompter and 2-3 downstage scrolling monitors [for] her to read from.”
During a walk-through of Royce Hall five days before the lecture, the e-mails show, Clinton’s team rejected the podium planned for her use during her 20- to 30-minute speech, setting off a scramble on campus to find a suitable podium and rent a new university seal to match.
To ward off the idea that Hillary personally oversees all these details, the Post noted “It is unclear how personally involved Clinton was in the UCLA negotiations and whether the requests from her agency were being directed by her or merely from underlings anticipating her preferences.”
This kind of story redeems the idea that major media outlets have already put reporters on the “Hillary beat,” if the intention is more journalism and less thinly disguised campaign-brochure copy. It shows how carefully managed and manipulated a candidate’s images can be, down to the video and photo details:
By contract, Clinton’s approval was needed for any promotional materials. Clinton gave permission for the university to record the event, but “for archival purposes only.” For public distribution, Clinton’s speaking agency approved only a two-minute highlight video to upload to YouTube. “Please make sure it is available only for one (1) year from the date of posting,” a Harry Walker Agency official added.
Clinton posed for individual photos with 100 VIPS, or 50 couples — “We get a total of 50 clicks,” one university official explained — as well as two group photos. Lippert wrote to colleagues that Clinton’s representatives wanted the group shots “prestaged,” with participants assembled and ready to take the photographs before Clinton arrived “so the secretary isn’t waiting for these folks to get their act together.” Reiterating the request, Lippert added, “She doesn’t like to stand around waiting for people.”
You have to enjoy this juicy detail near the end:
Other controversy surrounded Clinton’s visit. When an online survey asked the public what questions should be posed during a 40-minute question-and-answer session, university officials noted in e-mails that the majority of the suggestions were about the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
At the time of the speech on March 5, Rucker and the Post reported Mrs. Clinton’s remarks on Russia (comparing Putin to Hitler) on page one, but had nothing on the fee. That information came later, and the Post has since done several investigative stories on the lucrative speeches. The Los Angeles Times covered the UCLA speech in a similar fashion, but according to Nexis searching, has no reference this year to the big UCLA fee or Meyer Luskin, who bankrolled it. But reporter Maeve Reston found time in her story for Hillary's proud advocacy of homosexual causes:
"I spent a good amount of time trying to defend and advocate, not for gay marriage, but against discrimination and laws that even imprisoned homosexuals," particularly in Africa, Asia and Russia, she said. "It wasn't just the poor, developing nations. I had a knock-down, drag-out argument with the Russians."
"I think it's going to be tough internationally for quite some time," she said. "This is a big piece of unfinished business."
