Clinton hard to accept as philanthropy cheerleader

Word is that Bill Clinton's book Giving is not doing well. Some 750,000 copies were printed, but after a first week's sales of 50,000 orders have dropped off. Wonder why?

While there's no data to establish the reason, I suspect it's because Clinton's entire involvement with philanthropy is as a cheerleader, not a significant donor. A book about philanthropy by Bill Gates would probably sell exceptionally well. Books by direct mail fundraising wizards such as the guru Mal Warwick sell well.

It's hard to accept Clinton even as a cheerleader for voluntary wealth redistribution, after a career in politics where he redistributed money taken involuntarily through taxes to special interests who helped keep him in office. (Not unlike most other politicians, who, like Clinton, would not do well as cheerleaders for philanthropy.)

If he's always thought philanthropy was a good idea, why wasn't he using the bully pulpit of the presidency to encourage it, rather than continuing various government-mandated schemes to redistribute wealth? But the reason for Clinton trying to suck publicity oxygen from philanthropy may be more prosaic.

Clinton's former political friend Al Gore has now staked out a position as leader of world environmentalism. (That's a position which will, I predict, become increasingly untenable as the current brouhaha about global warming proves in future years to be a tempest in a teapot.)

So, perhaps Bill is jealous of his former number 2 Al, who now has a prize that the Nobel committee will one day regret having bestowed. Thus, in a superb example of junior high school boy level competition, Bill is trying to carve out his own position as world's number one philanthropy booster.

Both efforts have the distinct flagrance of cynicism and self-aggrandizement, which is genetic to the political culture in which both Bill and Al have marinated for decades.

Where are the honest political leaders who understand the limits that government should abide by and the necessity for individual freedom, and who do not continue dressing up the failed collectivist nostrums of the 20th century in MTV-style 21st century pyscho-babble?

There are a few - such as Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who recently drew a distinct line between "ideological environmentalism" and "scientific ecology" in a speech at the Cato Institute. There is Ron Paul, the only libertarian to run for a major party nomination in many decades. And there are a few others.

And there are signs people are beginning to listen. After all, sales of Giving have nosedived, almost counterintuitively, if one believes the media hype that a signficant number of Americans just can't wait to send the Clintons back to the White House. Not a few people, when polled, express complete exasperation with the current crop of presidential candidates. And also quite a few have noticed that after a year in control of Congress, the Democrats have not delivered on their main promise from 2006, ending the Iraq War.

And both Generation X and Y, now becoming more politically active, have a strong aversion to BS, much stronger, I am sad to say, than my own Baby Boomer generation. At some point, a majority of these two generations will fully realize how bad the BS really is, and there will be deep cultural and political change, not toward more collectivism but toward decentralization and freedom.

That's a prediction Bill, Al, Hillary, Fred, Rudy and the others don't want to know about.