Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pictured in October, has become one of the most powerful people in Washington. Here's a look at her life and career through the years: 
Hillary Rodham, center, a lawyer for the Rodino Committee, and John Doar, left, chief counsel for the committee, bring impeachment charges against President Richard Nixon in the Judiciary Committee hearing room at the U.S. Capitol in 1974. 
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton helps first lady Rosalynn Carter on a campaign swing through Arkansas in June 1979. Also seen is Hillary Clinton (center background).
Bill Clinton embraces his wife shortly after a stage light fell near her on January 26, 1992. They talk to Don Hewitt, producer of the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes." 
With Hillary, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton waves to the crowd during his victory party after winning the Illinois primary on March 17, 1992. 
Al Gore, from left, his wife, Tipper, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton wave to supporters at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, on August 23, 1992, after they gave speeches on family values. 
Clinton gestures at a campaign rally November 3, 1992, in Denver. After taking office, President Bill Clinton chose his wife to head a special commission on health care reform, the most significant public policy initiative of his first year in office. 
Bill and Hillary Clinton have a laugh together on Capitol Hill in 1993. 
Clinton pours herself a cup of tea during her testimony to the Senate Education and Labor Committee on health care reform in 1993. 
Clinton speaks at George Washington University on September 10, 1993, in Washington, during her husband's first term. 
Clinton, left, waves to the media on January 26, 1996, as she arrives at federal court in Washington for an appearance before a grand jury. The first lady was subpoenaed to testify as a witness in the investigation of the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. 
Hillary Clinton looks on as President Bill Clinton addresses the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on January 26, 1998. 
Hillary and Bill Clinton arrive at Foundry United Methodist Church on August 16, 1998, in Washington. He became the first sitting president to testify before a grand jury when he testified via satellite about the Monica Lewinsky matter. 
Clinton shakes hands during a St. Patrick's Day parade in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, New York, on March 5, 2000. 
Clinton waves to the crowd as she arrives on the stage at the Democratic National Convention on August 14, 2000, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. 
Clinton campaigns for a Senate seat at Grand Central Station on October 25, 2000, in New York. 
First lady Hillary Clinton is sworn in as a senator in a reenactment ceremony with President Bill Clinton, from left, nephew Tyler, daughter Chelsea, brother Hugh Rodham, mother Dorothy Rodham and Vice President Al Gore in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill on January 3, 2001, in Washington. 
Andrew Cuomo, from left, Eliot Spitzer and Clinton celebrate with the crowd of Democratic supporters after their wins in their various races on November 7, 2006, in New York. 
Clinton speaks during a post-primary rally on January 8, 2007, at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. 
The Clintons pay a visit to the 92nd Annual Hopkinton State Fair on September 2, 2007, in Contoocook, New Hampshire. 
Clinton speaks at a fall kickoff campaign rally on September 2, 2007, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 
Clinton addresses a question during a Democratic presidential candidates debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, on September 26, 2007. Also pictured are U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, left, and former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska. 
Felipe Bravo, left, and Christian Caraballo are covered with Hillary Clinton stickers in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, on January 8, 2008. 
Clinton campaigns with her daughter, Chelsea, on January 1, 2008, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, two days ahead of the January 3 state caucus. 
Sen. Clinton waves as she speaks to supporters at the National Building Museum on June 7, 2008, in Washington. Clinton thanked her supporters and urged them to back Sen. Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States. 
Barack Obama and Clinton talk on the plane on their way to a Unity Rally in Unity, New Hampshire, on June 27, 2008. 
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama watches Sen. Hillary Clinton address the Democrate National Convention at a Democratic supporters' group in Billings, Montana, on August 26, 2008. The two endured a long, heated contest for the 2008 nomination. 
Sen. Charles Schumer, left, looks toward Secretary of State designate Clinton as committee chairman Sen. John Kerry, center, looks on during nomination hearings on January 13, 2009, on Capitol Hill. 
Clinton testifies during her confirmation hearing for secretary of state before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on January 13, 2009, in Washington. 
Clinton dances with a local choir as while visiting the Victoria Mxenge Housing Project in Philippi on the outskirts of Cape Town, Souith Africa, on August 8, 2009. 
Clinton looks through binoculars toward North Korea during a visit to observation post Ouellette at the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas in Panmunjom on July 21, 2010. 
Clinton walks up the steps to her aircraft at sunset as she leaves an ASEAN meeting July 23, 2010, in Hanoi, Vietnam. 
From left: Hillary and Bill Clinton pose on the day of their daughter Chelsea's wedding to Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts Estate on July 31, 2010, in Rhinebeck, New York. 
U.S. President Barack Obama and Clinton observe a moment of silence before a NATO meeting on November 19, 2010, in Lisbon, Portugal. 
Clinton listens as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (not in picture) makes a brief statement before a bilateral meeting at the State Department in Washington on November 29, 2010. 
Clinton shakes hands with a child during an unannounced walk through Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, on March 16, 2011. 
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Clinton and members of the national security team receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, 2011. 
Clinton checks her PDA upon departure in a military C-17 plane from Malta bound for Tripoli, Libya, on October 18, 2011. 
Clinton speaks as Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, listens during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul on July 7, 2012. 
Clinton arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, outside Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 15, 2012. 
Clinton looks on as President Barack Obama makes a statement in response to the attack at the U.S. Consulate in Libya on September 12, 2012 at the Rose Garden of the White House. 
Clinton applauds Aung San Suu Kyi during a ceremony where Suu Kyi was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2012 in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, DC. 
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton kisses his wife after introducing her at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting on September 24, 2012 in New York City. 
Clinton shakes hands with Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf on September 24, 2012 in New York. 
Clinton stands during a press conference following meetings at the Prime Minister's Office in Pristina, Kosovo, on October 31, 2012. Clinton said that Kosovo's unilaterally declared independence, fiercely opposed by Serbia, was 'not up for discussion'. 
Clinton chats with Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi before President Barack Obama speaks at the University of Yangon in Yangon on November 19, 2012. 
President Barack Obama looks at Clinton before the start of a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, far right, during the East Asian Summit at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on November 20, 2012. 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with Clinton at the prime minister's office November 20, 2012 in Jerusalem, Israel. Clinton arrived in Israel as efforts by Western and Arab diplomats to end the confrontation between Israel and Gaza have escalated. 
Clinton arrives on December 4, 2012 for a meeting of foreign ministers from the 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member-countries in Brussels to discuss Syria and Turkey's request for Patriot missiles to be deployed protectively on the Turkish-Syrian border. 
Clinton receives a sports jersey and football helmet from Deputy Secretary Tom Nides, center, after returning to work on January 7, following a fall where she hit her head and doctors later detected a blood clot. The jersey had her last name on the top and with the number 112, which represents the number of countries that she has visited as Secretary of State. 
Clinton and her husband arrive for inauguration for President Barack Obama's second term at the U.S. Capitol on January 21. 
Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on January 23, in Washington, DC. Lawmakers questioned Clinton about the security failures during the September 11 attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. 
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- The Clinton Foundation has come under scrutiny for its operations and finances
- James Moore: As Hillary Clinton will likely run for president, critics are looking for mistakes
- He says evaluation of Clinton as a presidential candidate may be tied to the foundation
- Moore: Charity work honorable, but Clintons need to set boundaries on power, wealth
Editor's note: James C. Moore, a Texan, is a business consultant and principal at Big Bend Strategies. He is co-author of "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential" and an on-air TV political analyst.
(CNN) -- Bill and Hillary Clinton never fail to confound Americans. Their political and public service accomplishments often appear diminished by the stumbles in their private lives, real or imagined. No holder of high office, obviously, is ever judged simply for policy initiatives, and that seems especially true of the Clintons.
As Hillary Clinton positions herself for a likely 2016 run for president, the scrutiny she will endure extends, inevitably, to her husband. Journalists and critics on the right will probably have to mine new material, however. What happened in Arkansas and the Oval Office have been more topically tortured than Benghazi.
Fortunately, for the traffickers of faux outrage, the Clintons have offered up the Clinton Foundation, a ponderously complex institution that looks like it might be troubled by internecine squabbles, naked ambition, a touch of greed and an almost impossible to identify set of operational boundaries.
Regardless of altruistic goals and achievements, the Clinton Foundation has blended friendships and political relationships along with corporate and nonprofit endeavors in a structure that will feed material into the Hannity-Limbaugh-O'Reilly GOP commentary complex through the next presidential election cycle.
Clinton will likely not cross a room in the next few years without it being framed through the perspective of her unstated political plans to become president. News that she was moving with her staff into two floors of the Time-Life building, where the Clinton Foundation is located, may be a part of what prompted the New York Times to publish a detailed account of the nonprofit's operations and their possible implications for a second Clinton presidency.
The former secretary of state is planning initiatives on jobs, women and children under the organization's new title of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which, undoubtedly, will add to her already substantial resume.
There are, of course, always legitimate questions for global nongovernmental organizations and potential conflicts between their programs and the profit motives of their large corporate donors.
Analysis: Hillary Clinton's new office Increasing her association with the foundation means Clinton will be judged partly by the operational relationships of an institution that has previously been driven by her husband's global celebrity and fundraising skills. This is not a uniformly positive development.
During her primary race against President Barack Obama, the Clinton Foundation ran a deficit of $40 million, possibly because its fundraising was competing with her campaign's. Even though the foundation and the associated Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative had operating revenues of $214 million last year, it still ended with an $8 million deficit.
The Clintons are either very astute at navigating the nether world between corporate millions and honorable charity work, or they are still dealing with the bedazzlement of wealth and power and haven't figured out how to clearly understand what is appropriate and ethical.
The latter can hardly be argued. American presidential politics runs on the billions of multi-national businesses and winning elections is inextricably connected to finessing that dependency to give the converse appearance of independence.
The Times report suggests the Clintons are still figuring this out, and regardless of any philanthropic motivations to help with global problems, they may be harmed by their institutional ineptitude.
One example cited by The Times is a consultancy named Teneo, which was founded by a close associate of Bill Clinton. Monthly retainer fees were said to be up to $250,000 and the former president was a paid advisor, until the bad publicity and collapse of Jon Corzine's MF Global investment firm, a significant client. Hillary Clinton was reportedly angry about the negative media but it's unknown if she had previously commented or had ethical concerns regarding Teneo's recruitment of Clinton Foundation corporate donors to be clients.
Surely, all of this is not without meaning?
Well, maybe. The Clintons cannot be accused of not trying. Their political ambitions are as grand as their visions of global philanthropy.
In just the 2013 meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, public and private organizations made more than 70 commitments totaling $1.6 billion, estimated to impact about 2 million American lives. The Clinton Foundation has created significant partnerships around the planet to resolve issues related to health and wellness, economic inequality, climate change and childhood obesity.
Execution in all of these endeavors has been, undoubtedly, imperfect, and, yes, Hillary Clinton's public evaluation as a presidential candidate may be connected to some of those shortcomings. But the greater failure would be to make no effort to help improve a troubled world.
Perhaps the Clintons should simply return to Hope, Arkansas, rent a little house on a quiet side street and paint self-portrait watercolors.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of James C. Moore.
