I am neither a liberal nor a conservative. I'm a libertarian, so I really don't want any of the major U.S. presidential candidates to win.
But some of my political friends in both the right and left have a phrase I was reminded of while reading this article. It's "Vox-splaining"
The idea is that certain news outlets or articles exist based on the premise that those dumb voters! What they really just need is a patient voice to educate them on things. Then they would have correct political opinions. This can lead to really bad journalism where the author spends a lot of time trying to explain something that really doesn't need explaining -- all in an effort to correct misconceptions that nobody really ever had in the first place.
Why do famous people get paid a bazillion bucks to speak? Why, because they're famous, of course! I just plowed through 2,000 words that basically says this in various ways.
Yes, people pay lots of money to be near famous folks. They also pay money for access to famous folks. They pay money to influence famous folks to do things they want. There is no forced choice between these three options, and all can (and probably do) co-exist at the same time in many famous-person speaking engagements.
Every person in a 1,000 person audience probably has a different reason why an expensive speaker is worth it (or not).
My point has nothing directly to do with the Clinton campaign. I'm saying that you can't explain away an appearance of impropriety. We don't need extra education to figure out that sometimes folks pay an Apollo 13 astronaut a lot of money to have him come hang out at their annual civic club meeting. And that education doesn't paint away the glaringly obvious conclusion that when the astronaut shows up, there are all sorts of things that happen with increased access. Even if nothing unethical or illegal happens, in some situations that access doesn't look so good.
So when Bernie asked why anybody would pay that much for a speaker, he was inviting people to come up with various reasons why they would pay that much. This is only logical because after all, the folks buying the speeches and listening to them are doing the same thing. They are asking themselves: how can I make my increased access to this famous person worth it to me? And they all have different answers.
The first rule of ethics is that if it looks bad, it is bad. The reason is because it opens up discussion to people speculating like this -- and this speculation harms the institutions that the famous people represent. I believe the principle is that you are supposed to put the institution you represent above your own desires.