Whose hand is in whose pocket?

This morning, I ran into Samuel Tenenbaum and Henry McMaster having breakfast together. They asked me to join them, and I sat listening to their chat for several minutes before I had to ask the question I’d been thinking since I’d seen them:

Who is trying to get money out of whom?

As you may know, Samuel is the chief fund-raiser for the Palmetto Health system, and Henry now works raising cash for USC’s new law school.

When I asked that, two guy a  few feet away at the big round table of regulars there at the Capital City Club (Tom Persons and Jerry Whitley) both laughed out loud, because they had been thinking the same thing.

Samuel and Henry said “neither,” that they were just exchanging fund-raising ideas.

I got up and walked away, holding my coat pockets as tightly closed as I could…