A Million Schoolbooks for Liberia . . . Because?

President Bush has gone to Africa to make nice with the good people of Liberia. Fine.

We have given them most of a billion-with-a-B dollars to prevent them falling back into bloody strife. Okay, maybe I can go for that.

And now we're apparently going to buy a million schoolbooks for the Liberian skulls full of mush, as well as pay for 10,000 desks for the same. Hold on there.

I'm for kids going to school. I'm for the local economy making the furniture. I'm very much in favor of having textbooks in schools. But why is it my responsibility to pay so a kid in Liberia has a schoolbook? What's the big deal, it's only a few million dollars, right?

A few million here, a few million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Surely this is a local concern. As long as the teachers have a chalkboard and a piece of chalk, they can teach. Make the kids pay attention and expect results and the kids will learn. They don't need textbooks at our expense. The job of educating children in Liberia falls to the parents and government of Liberia. Not me.

Get out of my pocketbook, thanks.

Heartless? No. Make the people stand on their own feet. Start with the children.