Revolving Door For Government Officials

Why would you think they would not be able to keep the money? You wrote 'former' so they aren't employed as a shill while working for the gov't..they're civilians again, so where's there an issue?

For example, Clinton, after he left the Presidency, was paid (mighty well) on the lecture citrcuit for speech-making. Others have done the same. To my knowledge, any commercial advertising they do is legal and they are entitled to get paid.

OK. Thank you.

It strikes me as unseemly when the amount of money is vary large and the policies that the government official pursued caused great harm to the American people.

Are you talking about Bush?

No. Condoleezza Rice shilling for the National Football League.

That's small potatoes. And once again, she's a private citizen.

Want to see obscene? Why not check out Clinton's fee and his yearly income for speeches or look at Cheney's. That'll curl your hair.

On or about July 11, it was reported that Bill Clinton made $75 M since leaving office for making speeches.

"In 10 years as a private citizen, Clinton has delivered a total of 417 paid speeches and earned an average of $181,000 per event. Almost two-thirds of his total speech earnings, about $44.9 million, have come from 215 overseas events in 48 countries."

And furthermore: . . .

"Helping to propel the former president to his most lucrative year were two events for which he received a combined $1 million. The first was a June 2010 event in Moscow organized by Renaissance Capital. The other was a December speech delivered in the United Arab Emirates for Novo Nordisk, a global health care company. Clinton received $500,000 for each event, which tie for the second-largest payments he has received for a single event. In June 2008, he received $525,000 for a speech at a motivational speaking conference in Edmonton, Canada."


Oh and what about Dubyah (Bush), you ask? . . .

"The Center for Public Integrity, a public interest watchdog group, estimated in May that former president George W. Bush had delivered almost 140 paid speeches for at least $15 million in his two-and-a-half years since leaving the White House. A spokesman for President Bush's office declined to comment on the accuracy of that report."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/11/clinton-surpasses-75-million-in-speech-income-after-lucrative-2010/

Thank you.

Why are people/organizations willing to pay such large amounts of money for the speeches? Is there valuable information in the speech that is not available elsewhere? Is there an understanding that the famous person will do something else for them and the speech is just a cover?