And for My Second Act, I’ll Make Some Money
A NEW book out last week reported that President Bush wants to hop on the lecture circuit when he leaves office in 2009 — “replenish the ol’ coffers,” as he put it in Robert Draper’s account of his presidency, “Dead Certain.”
“I don’t know what my dad gets,” the president told Mr. Draper. “But it’s more than 50, 75” thousand dollars a speech. He added, “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
In recent years, virtually every president has left office and parlayed his experience into handsome fees. Criticism has followed.
Ronald Reagan was excoriated for taking $2 million for two speeches in Japan, at a time when the United States was locked in economic battle with his hosts; George H. W. Bush’s association with the Carlyle Group was held up to ridicule in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and Bill Clinton has been lambasted for extracting eye-popping fees, sometimes $350,000 a speech.
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“I don’t know what my dad gets,” the president told Mr. Draper. “But it’s more than 50, 75” thousand dollars a speech. He added, “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
In recent years, virtually every president has left office and parlayed his experience into handsome fees. Criticism has followed.
Ronald Reagan was excoriated for taking $2 million for two speeches in Japan, at a time when the United States was locked in economic battle with his hosts; George H. W. Bush’s association with the Carlyle Group was held up to ridicule in Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and Bill Clinton has been lambasted for extracting eye-popping fees, sometimes $350,000 a speech.