I'm not sure Hillary Clinton actually understands the concept of "dead broke"

I realize that this makes me a sexist, misogynist all-around-bad-person, but I don't think Hillary Clinton knows what the fuck she's talking about when  she refers to being "dead broke," at least not based on the situation she discussed with Diane Sawyer in their recent interview:



Let's look at this. Please. As Ace points out, the Clintons were pretty solid in the 1 percent even after they left the White House, between her Senate salary and Bill's presidential pension (not to mention his pension from Arkansas from his bazillion terms as governor):

She was also making $186,600 as a US Senator.
Bill was pulling down $200K in pension as an ex-President (that's just cash and doesn't include office staff, protection, etc).

OK, so we're looking at nearly $400,000 in annual salary -- roughly 10 times the national media household income at the time. Dead broke? Um, maybe not. As the December 16, 2000 New York Times noted:

Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed last night to sell Simon & Schuster a memoir of her years as first lady, for the near-record advance of about $8 million.
The deal ends a frantic weeklong bidding war that provoked widespread curiosity about just what she planned to write. Mrs. Clinton had told publishers she planned to discuss her feelings about the scandals of her husband's administration as well as her thoughts about women's changing roles in the world.

Granted, 8 million doesn't go as far as it used to, but it wasn't all the family reeled in that year, even if we ignore the $400,000 in salary they had coming. Not even close:

Former President Clinton has agreed to write his memoirs for Alfred A. Knopf, the publisher announced Monday, in perhaps the biggest deal ever for a nonfiction work.
Terms were not immediately disclosed, but the New York Times reported on its Web site that the 42nd president agreed to an advance of more than $10 million. The book is expected to be out in 2003.
That figure could be just the tip of the iceberg. The Washington Post reports the former president has received dozens of inquiries from international publishers who hope to buy foreign rights to the book.

OK, so we're up to $18.4 million or so in income for 2001, "when we left the White House."  What awful expenses did they have to cover?

According to Clinton, she and her husband, who has made over $100 million since leaving the White House, “struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you know, it was not easy.”
But, as Clinton’s story goes, the two hard-working, middle-class millionaires somehow managed to put food on the table in their multiple houses, even though they “had to make double the money, because of, obviously, taxes, and then pay off the debts and get us houses and take care of family members.”

 Yeah, I can see her clipping coupons just to make it. Chelsea fucking graduated in 2001 -- the Clintons had to cover exactly one semester of her education post-White House, which I have to believe they could do with the money they had coming in. Even if they also paid for her post-graduate education, during which Chelsea was employed and fully capable of paying her own way.

As for the other debts? Most of that was legal bills because Bill couldn't keep his dick in his pants and then felt the need to fight the resulting sexual harassment allegations for nearly five years before settling. Of course, he had the help of a legal defense fund that raised more than $8 million from generous Democrats. Weird how Hillary never mentions that.

Despite all these hardships, Hillary and Bill somehow managed to "piece together the resources for mortgages for houses." Plural. You know, I don't think a lot of people will buy her story of hardship, even if they don't follow the links.