a duty to help all. His money is hard earned. Getting low-cost drugs for children with AIDS? He's a mensch.
SNIP--
"Clinton says he spends more than half his time on the foundation, and he's trying to get to the point where that's all he does. "I don't see how we could have exploded this any faster and had more impact that we have," he says. "We started with me, a handful of people, and $10 million in debt." When asked if he has any fear of failure, he says, simply, "No." Then he offers a line that you might hear from a motivational speaker. "If you try enough things and are ambitious enough, you're going to fail at some. The thrill of this is trying to do it." He insists that his foundation is not an attempt to atone for past sins or compensate for lost power. "I promised myself when I left the presidency that I would not spend one day sitting and moping and wishing I was still President," he says. He repeats a variation of this a little too often for it to be believable, though, and while he'll discourse on the limits of presidential power, he also recounts a telling anecdote. Someone recently asked him if he thought he would wind up doing more good as a former President than he did as President. "Only if I live a long time!" he said.
In truth, no explanation of Bill Clinton's motives can do them justice. Is he trying to help Hillary by generating goodwill and building support among both Republicans and Democrats? He'll deny that Hillary needs any help. He is sensitive to charges that he didn't put a stamp on his time as President, and he acknowledges a few failures-about Rwanda, he says, "I do think I have a debt there, and I don't think it can ever be fully discharged." But if he has any sense of mission not accomplished, he won't admit to it.
Clinton casts his motivations in moral and religious terms-and frequently mentions his own mortality. In a speech a year ago, he said, "It will benefit us economically if we do this. But we need a little humility here. If we really have our religious teachings grounded, well, we will do this because it's the right thing to do." He also said, "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me. I just don't want anybody to die before their time anymore." In Harlem, he picked up a picture of himself and Hillary back in Arkansas. "I was only 39 then, and I didn't look it," he said. "I didn't look my age until I was 45, and then it all went to hell." He's been saying things like this since 1996 or so, when he seemed to realize that his graying-now white-hair lent him a gravitas he'd lacked. But after quadruple-bypass surgery, who can say he hasn't earned it now?
Flying through African skies after a long day in Malawi, Clinton went on another extended monologue about his motivations. "Always in my life, I've had a consuming interest in people, politics, and policy. I'm out of politics now except for whatever use I am to Hillary. But I'm not out of people and policy. My primary motivation is that I love this stuff." For the people in Malawi, he said, there was but one choice: to work to live. "That's the way 99% of people in human history have lived. If you're in that narrow class who can live to work, you are privileged not just now, but in any single moment that ever existed." He added, "If you can do something that makes a difference, you have a moral obligation. But it's not a burden, it's a joy. I think those are my motives," he concluded. "But who can really know?"
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/09/18/8386185/index.htm
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