Why Are Charities Feeding Bill's Ego?

Forget for a second the Arab oil money that buoys the Clinton Foundation, Marty Peretz writes in the Wall Street Journal—“since when is the Clinton Foundation one of the approved charities of the United Way?” Nonprofits and foundations, from hospitals to universities to opera companies, are lining the former president's coffers, and Peretz can’t figure out why, or where the money goes—other than Bill Clinton's ego. “This information is not in the report.”

The list is long on “charities we all give to generically,” Peretz writes: Feed the Children, the WHO, and the World Bank are there as well. “Why would they give cash to charitable work for which Mr Clinton is at most a matchmaker?” And those irksome donations pale in comparison to $5 million from Citigroup— "Is Treasury now paying up?"—and Citgo. “It is unseemly for an American president to ask the energy company of the Venezuelan dictatorship for spare cash.” (More Bill Clinton stories.)