FOX News

How much more ridiculous will the Denise Rich public-relations show be? She's already done interviews with Barbara Walters and Larry King in which she's purposely come across as flaky and dim-witted.

At least King had the good sense to own up to his past associations with Rich at her parties and fund-raisers. Barbara failed to mention the number of times she grazed at Denise's table.

Tsk, tsk, Barbara. You were in that triplex apartment last October for the Gorbachev party — the same party at which Denise entertained the newer Mrs. Rich, who was there with former Clinton attorney Jack Quinn to work on plans for the pardon.

Walters also never mentioned the name Beth Dozoretz, the Clinton fund-raiser who grew up with Denise in Worcester, Massachusetts. Denise spent all of the Christmas holiday at Dozoretz's Aspen, Colo., digs working on pardon plans. Clinton called them there. Larry King mentioned Dozoretz's name, but not the lifelong connection between the women.

In these two nutty interviews, Denise Rich insisted that her daughter's death in 1996 was what catalyzed her relationship with the Clintons — and her interest in obtaining a pardon for Marc Rich.

Some of this was attributed to Marc, a fugitive, being unable to see his children. But Denise's kids lived with her and Marc in Switzerland until the early '90s. When Denise moved home, "the kids" — who are both adults and one has kids of her own — still were able to travel back to Switzerland to see Rich at any time. They could have also visited him in Spain or Israel.

Denise, in fact, yachts off the Spanish resort of Marbella every year. By coincidence, Marc Rich owns a resort in Marbella and has Spanish citizenship.

It’s not like they all had to meet in Hell’s Kitchen under a thirty-watt lightbulb.

Denise claims she was indeed motivated to get into politics by her daughter Gabrielle's death in 1996. That doesn't explain the following contributions:

According to federal election recortds, she gave $105,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1993; another $105,000 to the DNC in 1994; and $55,000 in 1995. Also in 1995, she gave Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign two checks for $1,000 apiece from her own checkbook — not soft money. But since that was double the amount she was allowed to give, one check had to be credited back to her.

This doesn't count various small contributions to Sen. Edward Kennedy, Sen. Arlen Specter (the Republican from oil-rich Pennsylvania) and some other more minor candidates.

Gabrielle Rich Aouad died, sadly, in 1996. By then, Denise Rich was already a full-fledged Democratic donor for almost four years.

The original theorem about Marc Rich stands: protected under the first Bush administration, Rich was nervous that the newly elected Democrats and Bill Clinton might cause trouble for him. Therefore, the donations started pouring right after the 1992 election. And people who believe that Denise Rich is naïve, flaky, spacey, or otherwise not knowledgeable about her husband’s business or personal mission since her return to the United States are themselves naïve.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2001