Bill Clinton Pushing Hard For Haiti Relief

[lame54]

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/01/14/clintonhaiti/print.html

Bill Clinton pushing hard for Haiti relief

For years he has led international efforts to save the Haitians -- and now the tragedy may provide global traction
By Joe Conason

Jan. 14, 2010 |

Officially, Bill Clinton is the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last summer, and in that post he is already deeply involved in the international relief and reconstruction effort for that devastated country. Unofficially, Clinton is the global “master of disaster," a position he has occupied ever since the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, when he joined with former President George H.W. Bush to raise and direct the expenditure of billions of dollars. So if he is suddenly appearing everywhere again in the wake of the earthquake, that should come as no surprise.

Behind the scenes, however -- or at least when most Americans were paying no attention to the impoverished island republic -- Clinton has been working steadily to improve conditions in Haiti for a long time. Over the past several years, his Clinton Global Initiative has served as a platform for the most effective development and rebuilding projects on the island, including Partners in Health, the project created by the legendary Dr. Paul Farmer to fight HIV/AIDS and establish medical clinics in cities, villages and isolated rural areas there. When the current crisis abates and reconstruction resumes, Clinton’s foundation is certain to remain at the center of efforts to bring sustainable water, energy, education, health and economic resources to the Haitians...

...Amid the disturbing news, it was darkly amusing to observe how eagerly these outlets courted the former president -- only days after promoting "Game Change," a book that stretches journalistic rules to attack him. Block, Stephanopoulos, Blitzer and Cooper (who is in Haiti) all wisely refrained from asking him about that book’s allegations (which turned out to be self-refuting in the most publicized matter concerning him).

All such trivial effluvia is off the screen, for the moment, with hundreds of thousands of lives apparently lost and hundreds of thousands more in peril. Within the first 12 hours or so of Clinton’s fundraising appeal, which began around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, his foundation’s dedicated Web page raised $2.6 million for Haitian relief. And that total doesn’t include the money raised via mobile texting (HAITI to 20222) at $10 per call -- which a foundation spokesperson said is already "catching wildfire."

[niyad]

1. k and r

[dkf]

2. I do find it weird that of all places to have a catastrophic disaster it happens to be his

Apppointment from Obama.

[lame54]

3. Did Bill cause the earthquake?

[SallyMander]

4. It was the Clenis!!!!

:o

[dkf]

5. No. It's scarily prescient. Like they knew he'd be needed.

[lame54]

6. ok