A Producer on Line 4

Did you catch my quotes in yesterday's USA Today about Warren Buffett's decision to start giving his money away, primarily to the Gates Foundation? Probably not, since the reporter called on Sunday, and I was camping with my kids in the Catskills and unreachable, and therefore didn't make any quotes.

So maybe you saw me on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer yesterday? I did do a pre-interview and was ready to go, but I got bumped for Eugene Tempel of the Center on Philanthropy at the last minute. If you read the transcript here and replace "Tempel" with "Stamp", you can pretend it was me. Mr. Tempel's a little older, and probably a little smarter than me, but it's close enough.

And then last night, for the young and the prematurely gray, you could have caught me on Anderson Cooper's show at 11:00 P.M. EST. Except of course that the show's producer called me at home at 10:15 P.M. to see if I could come in to the studio, and since I don't live at CNN, but actually live more than an hour away, that was a no-go too.

So what would I have said in all of these media outlets about Warren Buffett, had I been somewhere other than a tent, or smarter than Eugene Tempel, or a resident of the upper west side?

I would have said that I find it refreshing that Mr. Buffett was willing to forego the ego-rewarding but inefficient act of creating his own foundation. I would have said that, unlike others, I don't expect any more congressional oversight of this foundation than existed before. I would have said that I find it amusing that the Gates Foundation will now be larger than the next ten biggest foundations in America, combined. And I would have said that I really hope the Gates Foundation has good program officers and partners, because the stakes are way too high to fail.

And now I've said those things. And I've said them in my favorite forum of all. It may not have the reach of the others, but I didn't have to shave to say it here either.