Apparently, ABC News got their mitts on some tapes of old Wal-Mart board meetings and aired a nasty piece on Hillary Clinton on this morning’s Good Morning America:

In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world’s largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.

The substance of the charge is that Hillary was mute in meetings where union busting was rigorously discussed. I think it is important to put this is some perspective.

President Clinton defended his wife’s role on the Wal-Mart board last week after the issue was raised by Sen. Barack Obama in a CNN debate.

His wife did not try to change the company’s minds about unions, the former Arkansas governor said.

“We lived in a state that had a very weak labor movement, where I always had the endorsement of the labor movement because I did what I could do to make it stronger. She knew there was no way she could change that, not with it headquartered in Arkansas, and she agreed to serve,” President Clinton said.

The tapes show that Hillary advocated for more environmentally-friendly business practices and better treatment for female employees, but it turns out she wasn’t particularly effective as an advocate.

Critics say Clinton’s efforts produced few tangible results, and Wal-Mart is now defending itself in a lawsuit brought by 16 current and former female employees.

“I don’t doubt the sincerity of her efforts, but we don’t see much evidence that conditions for women at Wal-Mart changed much during the late 1980s and early 1990s,” said Joe Sellers, one of the lawyers suing Wal-Mart on behalf of the women.

Personally, I am not particularly disturbed by this news. It seems to me to be a lot of quibbling that takes too little account of the circumstances of the time. What I find more disturbing than Hillary’s time on the board of Wal-Mart is her ongoing relationship with the company.

According to the New York Times, Sen. Clinton “maintains close ties to Wal-Mart executives through the Democratic Party and the tightly knit Arkansas business community.” The May 20, 2007 article also reported that her husband, former President Clinton, “speaks frequently to Wal-Mart’s current chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr.” and held a private dinner at the Clinton’s New York home in July 2006 for him.

It’s one thing to maintain old contacts, it’s quite another to hold private dinners at your home for union busting CEO’s. It reminds me of a couple of other tidbits I’ve seen recently.

Asked whether his infidelity is hypocritical, in light of his political commitments, [Richard Mellon-Scaife] refers not to a moral principle but to his own personal history. “My first marriage ended with an affair,” he says, amused. And monogamy is not, he continues, an essential part of a good marriage. “I don’t want people throwing rocks at me in the street. But I believe in open marriage.” Philandering, Scaife says with a laugh, “is something that Bill Clinton and I have in common.”

Those are surprising words indeed to hear from a man who spent so lavishly to uncover Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes and to advance the movement fueled by family values. But it would be a mistake to read the saga of Richard Mellon Scaife’s divorce as simply a story of moral hypocrisy. His treatment of women, especially his first wife, suggests a high regard for his own gratification…

…Scaife speaks of a “very pleasant” two-hour-and-fifteen-minute private lunch with Bill Clinton at the former president’s New York office last summer. “I never met such a charismatic man in my whole life,” Scaife says, glowing with pleasure at the memory. “To show him that I wasn’t a total Republican libertarian, I said that I had a friend named Jack Murtha,” a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. “He said, ‘Oh, Jack Murtha. You’re talking about my golfing partner!’ ”

And who can forget this CBS News headline: Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton: Conservative Media Mogul To Host Fundraiser For Liberal N.Y. Senator?

To call them a political odd couple would be a rash understatement.

Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will host a fundraiser for liberal New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Financial Times reports.

The mating ritual of the unlikely allies has been under way for months. Clinton set political tongues to wagging last month by attending a Washington party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fox News, the cable news channel owned by Murdoch.

The Financial Times quoted one unnamed source as describing the Clinton-Murdoch connection in this way: “They have a respectful and cordial relationship. He has respect for the work she has done on behalf of New York. I wouldn’t say it was illustrative of a close ongoing relationship. It is not like they are dining out together.”

It’s only in this larger context that I find Hillary’s work for Wal-Mart to be disturbing. It’s not that she didn’t quit the board way back when, it’s that she and her husband don’t seem to know who the enemy is, despite all their experience dealing with them.