RICH REICH

No, he’s not in an Enron fix. But it’s interesting to see former labor secretary Robert Reich report over $750,000 in corporate speaking fees last year. “I do the speeches because it’s very, very easy money,” he told the Boston Herald. “I am utterly amazed the businesses are willing to pay so much for my economic expertise . . . but, if they want to pay that much, it’s a free market, I’m delighted.” Among the companies that have given him money – at $32,000 for a sixty minute speech – are Ford Motors, Panasonic, Merrill Lynch, Aetna Financial Services, Standard & Poors, Deloitte & Touche, Forbes Management Conference Group and Behrman Capital. Now, he’s running for governor of Massachusetts, and pandering to the left in the primaries. There’s nothing wrong with what he has done; and he has disclosed it all. But he’s also a journalist and founding editor of the American Prospect – a magazine often railing against corporate excess. It’s useful to know – however belatedly – just how much Reich has benefited from corporate speeches recently, while writing columns that often deal with economic issues that affect such corporations. I guess, like Paul Krugman, he is in the circle of Those Who Get Money Calls. Fair enough. But I hope he doesn’t push his new-found populism a little too far in the campaign. It would sound just a little bit phony, don’t you think? He even backed out of an early candidates’ debate in order to cash in on a $40,000 IBM gig. Those are his priorities. Or maybe they’re just a Third Way. Take it away, Mickey Kaus!