Bundlers

It has been clear for some time that President Obama has followed the time-dishonored practice of rewarding campaign contributors with cushy jobs in government and other benefits. But a new report by the Center for Public Integrity documents the outrageous extent to which the president's financial benefactors are being installed in important positions, including ambassadorships. An inquiry by the center's investigative team found that more than two years into Obama's administration, "nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events.

When candidate Barack Obama spoke of change, we thought he meant a new way of doing business, but apparently he also meant coinage. Because President Obama has kept the unsavory tradition of doling out some of the cushiest ambassadorial posts to fundraisers who brought in some of the biggest chunks of change to his campaign.

A ubiquitous entrepreneur raises funds for a Democratic candidate for president. Should the candidate return the gifts made possible by this financial angel? If the angel is international man of mystery Norman Hsu and the candidate is Hillary Rodham Clinton, the answer is a no-brainer. The New York senator's campaign announced this week that it was returning $850,000 in donations "bundled" by Hsu, a prolific fundraiser who turned out to be a fugitive from a California fraud case.

When Bill Clinton received an award at a gala dinner honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy last year, the former president expressed his thanks before an audience that included a Nobel Prize winner and a glittering array of show business celebrities and Wall Street titans. Yet the second sentence of his remarks expressed special gratitude to a man almost no one there had heard of: "our friend Norman Hsu."

When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) laid out the financial goals for her budding presidential campaign in a private meeting at her Washington home earlier this week, a key element in her fundraising plan was a time-honored technique that relies on supporters who promise to round up big dollars -- in this case, as much as $1 million each.

Capital Z Financial Services Fund II, a private equity fund, said Wednesday it has agreed to pay as much as $100 million to take a controlling stake in Los Angeles-based Aames Financial Corp., a home equity lender. Aames, which bundles loans and sells them to investors, was hurt this year as falling currencies in emerging markets and Russia's default led investors to flee high-risk bonds for safer U.S. Treasury bonds. Aames Chief Executive Cary H.