The Spousal Shell Game

For good reasons of public policy, political candidates must forgo general protections of privacy that all Americans rightfully demand in ordinary circumstances. Citizens are correct to insist that their tax returns and medical records remain private. These records are no one’s business but theirs, and we share a common purpose in protecting their confidentiality — ours and our neighbors’.

Not so for public officials, especially presidential candidates, whose health and financial conditions are the public’s business. These records, then — of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain — are relevant areas of public inquiry. The candidates have acceded to making these records available, even if reluctantly and not completely in all respects.

The integrally related, but less examined, question is the obligation of Mrs. Obama and Mrs. McCain and Mr. Clinton to reveal their records — financial, not medical. Here, a spousal shell game has been played by Mrs. McCain and Mr. Clinton. Both are multimillionaires personally, and in addition former President Clinton has raised a fortune for his foundation and presidential library. The public is entitled to know the sources and uses of these people’s fortunes because they may be related to their spouses’ campaigns. I say may because we don’t know. Voters are entitled to know. The longer the silence, the greater the suspicions. To demonstrate that their privacy is at the heart of this self-censorship, not self-protection — or spousal cover-up — all Mrs. McCain or Mr. Clinton has to do is make these records open to public scrutiny.

Mrs. McCain, when asked if she’d make her tax returns public, said no. Former President Clinton has not made public his library’s fundraising sources. Candidate Hillary Clinton, when asked whether these records will be made public, said no. In one debate she added obliquely, “The Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves.” Real edifying.

So far, the media have not made much of this issue, accepting these answers and moving on to other irrelevant questions like who is wearing patriotic pins (note: the questioner did not wear pins, nor did patriotic Sen. McCain, nor did Sen. Clinton, who sat next to Sen. Obama when the question was asked by the pin-less Stephanopoulos, but I digress). I submit that Mrs. McCain and President Clinton and their spouses are playing the spousal shell game, actively involved in their spouses’ campaigns but refusing to be openly transparent to the public about possible conflicts of interest (note again, the media has pursued Obama’s connection to a questionable Chicago character).

Ironically, while these two multimillionaires hide the source of their fortunes, their spouses claim their opponent, Sen. Obama, is “elite.” Two $100 millionaires calling someone who just paid off his school debts elite reminds me of the old joke about the hydrant peeing on the dog.

For Mrs. McCain and Mr. Clinton to take active roles in their spouses’ campaigns for the highest office in the world while their husband and wife benefit from their unexamined fortunes is the ultimate spousal shell game.

I support Sen. Obama, and I approve this blog!