Here at Wampum, one of our favorite charities is Cure Autism Now. Mary Beth stayed up all night during the blogathon to raise money for CAN. I was one of her sponsors. CAN does great work and provides hope that a cure for autism can be discovered.
If you do not believe me, you could ask former President Gerald Ford. In 2001, Ford received a “Special Giving Award” at a charity event known as the Family Celebration. The event raised over a million dollars for 18 charities including CAN. The Betty Ford Foundation was the recipient of $150,000 from that event.
You might think that it was nice of President Ford to help raise money to help autistic kids. Sure, the life of an ex-President is pretty cushy. President Ford receives a combined pension of almost a quarter of a million dollars per year from his government service. He gets free office space, secretarial help and Secret Service protection. Sure, President Ford has cashed in on being an ex-President by sitting on eight corporate boards and receiving $80,000 per speech. At least he is willing to donate his time to help raise money for autistic kids by receiving an award at a charity event, right?
Wrong. The L.A. Times reports that President Ford was paid $200,000 for accepted the “Special Giving Award.” Steve Lopez, also writing in the L.A. Times suggests that it was actually a “Special Taking Award.”
The award certainly was special. As noted above, President Ford charges $80,000 to give a speech to business groups. When it comes to money that would otherwise go to help autistic kids, he gets $200,000. Attending a charity event for autistic kids must be two and half times harder than talking to business executives. It must surely be rough for Jerry to interrupt his golf game and have to listen to people talk about the plight of autistic kids.
Jerry Ford is a disgrace.
I agree that it's disgraceful for celebrities to charge fees like that for appearing at charity events, but after reading the LA Times articles you linked to, I have to sadly say that Ford's behavior -- as reprehensible as it is -- comes across as the most ethical of any of the people profiled there.
He was offered money to appear, he took it, and he doesn't deny it. Compare that to most of the other weasel scum who took charity money. My favorite responses are the ones in the "Oh, I was going to give my fee to another charity but haven't gotten around to it yet" variety.
Some of those people even threatened to bill the charities directly for their fees, once this Tonken guy fell behind in his payments to them.
THAT'S disgraceful.
Skippy: I just expect more from ex-Presidents than from Paul Anka.
Posted by: dwight meredith at December 10, 2003 01:32 PMHmmm, I almost offered a glib agreement with you on that remark, but then I gave it a little more thought and decided that lets too many people off the hook too easily.
Sure, you can make an argument that we shouldn't expect better from this particular celebrity or another, but I'm not willing to define disgraceful behavior based on what I'm "expecting" from a person.
All of the people profiled in those articles should be ashamed, and some more than others, based on what they did, not who they are.
And believe me, I'm not excusing Ford. Being a slightly less slimier drop of slime in a bucket of slime isn't much of a distinction.
I had wanted to avoid asking this, but it turns out I just can't resist...
Will you really expect more from GWB than from Paul Anka?
*sigh*
Posted by: mattH at December 12, 2003 02:45 PM