The Answer To America's Problems: Let Bob Do It. By Jeff Smith THREE-AND-A-half years until Bill Clinton finally gets that free time he's been wanting to help Jimmy Carter saw boards and pound nails, and already he's getting warm and fuzzy over volunteerism. I'm getting all clammy-eyed at the thought of it. Not since George Bush gave his "thousand-points-of-light" speech have I been so inspired by a presidential cri de couer. And I really mean it: It's that underwhelming. Last week Bill and Hillary and a few of their closest personal friends and smarmiest political adversaries wound up what was hyperbolically christened The President's Summit on America's Future. They put it on in Philadelphia--not the Philly of the cream cheese, or the one place worse than the grave to the mind of W.C. Fields, but the Philadelphia of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence. Does one suppose there's a public relations message sublimated in any of this? With so lofty a title one might expect a similarly lofty agenda and goals. America's future? Well let's see what we can do about War, Plague, Pestilence and Famine, poverty, crime, urban decay and global warming. Then there's the killer bee, the anopheles mosquito, the ebola virus and AIDS. We've still got to work out something with Mexico over drugs, so their government can still make a shitload selling franchises and taking bribes, but not jeopardize their status as our partner in the war on drugs. And NAFTA and the trucks on Highway 82 through Patagonia. Not to mention the IRS, capital gains taxes. If we're seriously talking about America's future, we've got a pretty full plate here. But back in Philly for the conference, all they talked about was letting Bob do it. You know Bob: the guy next door, the kindly old dude with the pegboard on his basement wall with all the tools profiled in black paint. The guy who oils the chains on all the neighborhood kids' bikes. The volunteer. So this is it? This is the answer to America's problems, the key to America's future? We gather for a big ol' group hug and whip one another into a frenzy of enthusiasm for helping each other out? Call me a cynic, but I think it's going to take more than that. In fact I think if the Clintons and the Bushes and the Powells really were serious about volunteerism, they'd have been doing what the Carters have been doing these last 17 years: volunteering. I am not a cynic. Despite nearly 30 years in the newspaper business, I remain an optimist. I believe in helping others. I believe helping others is one of the most positive, salubrious forms of social calisthenics. I just don't happen to believe Bill and Hillary Clinton share my feelings. This whole Summit on America's Future was political fluff, and I'm ashamed of my fellows in the news media for letting Bill Clinton sandbag them. Of course the national press knew this was the most transparent manner of dry-humping. How could anyone criticize or oppose the idea of volunteering to help the nation's less-fortunate? Precisely because it's so too-good-to-be-true. Precisely because it's so obviously rigged and above reproach. Precisely because the whole approach is so blue-sky-and-puffy-white-clouds, so big and broad and vague and unaccountable. Because nobody can get tagged when it fails. Remember when that prince of charlatans, Werner Erhard, the wizard of EST, cooked up his Hunger Project and told the world that he and Valerie Harper and John Denver and a few other washed-up Hollywood hacks were going to end hunger on the planet, not by giving food to hungry people, but by refusing to accept the concept of hunger. Very California. Also very failed. And perhaps even worse than the failure of such Beverly Hills Zen bullshit is the fact that it introduced the word "unacceptable" as the pejorative of contemporary choice. Rivaled only by "inappropriate." I suppose in a time of flaccid and wimpy leadership, and equally dickless opposition, we should be reduced to these softballs of vilification. Where are the ass-chewers of yesteryear? But I digress. Werner Erhard is yesterday's news and Bill Clinton is tomorrow's yesterday's news, and the President's Summit on America's Future was last week's news. Ah, but America's future, lower case, the real deal, is tomorrow's news. Bill Clinton's visionary bankruptcy is today's news. And tomorrow's. So where does America stand at this minute? Well, we've got a president who has run out of substantive ideas, but not out of trouble, caused by his own lack of true belief and moral fire. And the loyal opposition? Same deal. Newt Gingrich peaked, as a let's-pretend ideologue, with the Contract For America, and has spent his time since, like Bill Clinton, stepping on his dick and trying to divert public attention away from it. And leadership aside, as a nation we have entered that phase in our life-cycle where we'd rather be comfy than free. A nation in its rowdy, energetic and inspiring youth wants freedom and is willing to exert itself to win it. In middle age a nation seeks safety and consolidation of material gain. America now finds itself in late-middle/early-old age, already fat and winded, but not yet wise, wishing only to be comfortable and left alone to watch life on the telly. The Bill of Rights doesn't carry much weight these days. And the bill of privileges is one pricey sonofabitch. But don't worry about it. Bill Clinton and Colin Powell together will inspire the boys and girls of Sigma Chi and Kappa Alpha Theta to spend the weekend picking up the litter. Dude, I feel like, sooo much better already.

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