War Crime Trials for Bush? Try Fat Fees on the Speaking Circuit

By Jordan Smith, AlterNet. Posted January 20, 2009.

"I don't think we could have had a better closing speaker than Karl. The attendees were almost unanimously enthralled throughout his entire presentation and pleasantly surprised at how funny and personable he was," reports the National Association of Convenience Stores.

"Karl Rove has a one-of-a-kind political mind and a biting wit. Both were on full display when he spoke for our recent luncheon. An enthusiastic Dallas crowd laughed along as they learned from his insight, then they gave him a standing ovation," gushes the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, the conservative think tank. 

All of this is in keeping with a gradual shift in how presidents comport themselves following their departure from the highest office. When Harry Truman left the White House in 1953, he was still surviving off his Army pension of $112.26 per month, and he had to take out a loan at Washington's national bank in his last weeks as president to get him through. He turned down numerous offers from organizations for easy jobs paying over $100,000 per year, and he never accepted consulting fees. He even turned down a free Toyota offered by the company as a demonstration of good relations between Japan and America. According to David McCullough's book Truman, "His only intention, as he said, was to do nothing -- accept no position, lend his name to no organization or transaction -- that would exploit or 'commercialize' the prestige and dignity of the office of the president." 

Well, goodbye to all that. Presidents following Truman have had much less compunction about profiting from their time leading the most powerful nation on earth. Eisenhower was a paid TV news commentator during political party conventions, says Updegrove. "But it was still not very common for presidents to make money off the office until Gerald Ford joined the boards of several corporations," he says.

Ford was roundly criticized for his actions at the time, although they seem positively dignified by today's standards. He signed on with American Express, Texas Commerce Bank, 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and others. All told, he netted more than a million dollars in supplemental income from these corporations, but Ford dismissed his critics, saying, "it's nobody's business, because I'm a private citizen now." Subsequent presidents have agreed.

Ronald Reagan was heavily criticized for making commercials for Japanese companies, although Jimmy Carter had done much the same thing, according to Updegrove. George H.W. Bush was really the innovator in realizing the great wealth that could be amassed simply by talking. He left office in 1992 as a mildly popular one-term president after losing an election with the lowest percentage of the vote for any major candidate since William Howard Taft in 1912. But as recently as 2004, Bush the elder was reportedly paid more than $100,000 for giving speeches in China. "I don't know what my dad gets -- it's more than 50-, 75- thousand dollars a speech," the current president told Draper. 

Bush also noted to Draper that "[Bill] Clinton's making a lot of money." Indeed, he is. After leaving office at age 54 in 2001 with approximately $12 million in legal debts, the former president made at least $40 million in speaking fees. The minimum fee was $100,000, but he got up to $400,000 for some speeches. 

Clinton left office as a highly popular president, however. His 65 percent approval rating at the time of departure was the best for any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was even more popular abroad than at home. Bush, on the other hand, will be leaving office more unpopular -- and for a longer period of time -- than any president in the history of American polling.

Even without his family's massive wealth, Bush would never be destitute. Since the Truman era, Congress has given former presidents a pension adequate for a comfortable retirement. Bush will receive $186,000 a year, in addition to travel funds, mailing privileges, Secret Service protection, office space, staff and transition expenses.

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Jordan Michael Smith is a press officer at the Project on National Security Reform. His views are not necessarily those of PNSR's.

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