THE ADVANCE

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The Naples Daily News

Guest editorial: The meaning of the gift to Hillary

Saturday, December 30, 2000

By PAUL CAMPOS, Scripps Howard News Service

In his book "Humiliation," William Ian Miller notes that gifts create obligations for those who receive them — obligations that can be more burdensome than legally enforceable contracts. In the midst of the holiday season, Miller's descriptions of the many ways in which gift-giving can wrong seem especially pointed.

A gift can be an insult, if for example it is far less expensive or elaborate than what the social context requires. On the other hand, extravagance is almost as perilous: An overly expensive gift can be a way of signaling that the recipient is unwilling or unable to reciprocate in kind.

Even if the time and expense that the giver has invested in acquiring and giving the gift is perfectly calibrated to the occasion, it is a rare gift indeed whose giver does not expect to be reciprocated. Miller emphasizes that, despite what etiquette may tell us, we all understand that gifts inevitably leave us in debt to those who give them to us.

Last week, Hillary Clinton received a very nice gift indeed — an $8 million advance from Simon and Schuster for her projected memoirs. Technically, of course, this money isn't a gift. Sen. Clinton will be required to produce a book manuscript that Simon and Schuster will duly publish, and she will receive no further royalties from the project until roughly 3 million copies of the book have been sold (the publisher will have to sell almost that many before it can hope to see any direct profit from its investment).

Realistically, however, this gargantuan advance has a distinctly gratuitous flavor. The odds of Sen. Clinton's memoirs selling substantially more than three million copies are slim; the probability that it may sell far fewer are high. In other words, this is a publishing project that, on its face, has almost no upside for the publisher, and a very large downside.

Which brings us back to gift-giving. Now that another Christmas has come and gone, millions of Americans are experiencing the inevitable letdown of having received presents that somehow created a suspicion that those nearest and dearest to them may not, in the end, care enough about them to find that perfect gift.

Those who fear they may have given a gift or two that fell flat should take a tip from the Viacom Corporation (the telecommunications giant of which Simon and Schuster is a wholly owned subsidiary): While fruitcakes are nice, and diamonds remain a girl's best friend, few gifts say "I care" like a check for $8 million.

Viacom cares enough about Sen. Clinton's feelings that it didn't even require its publishing subsidiary to ask the budding author to supply a five-page book proposal before forking over a mountain of cash. Such petty details, after all, would have interfered with the spirit in which the gift was given.

One day — and that day may never come — Viacom may have occasion to ask the junior senator from New York to remember its generosity. The regulation of the telecommunications industry is itself a multi-billion dollar enterprise, in which hundreds of millions of dollars can turn on the phrasing a single clause within a complex piece of legislation. It must be a comfort to the stockholders of Viacom that the company's management is doing everything in its power to ensure that it has all the friends that money can buy.

What, in the end, is the difference between a gift and a bribe? In the law, that difference is fairly clear, at least most of the time. But as Sen. Clinton knows better than almost anyone, life is considerably more complicated than law. In the endlessly complex game of giving and receiving, one thing remains constant: It's the thought that counts.

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado.

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-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), December 30, 2000

Answers

Didn't Gingritch have to give back the 4 mil. on his book deal? Oh yeah, "that was them, this is us".

Also, I heard (but can't back up) that the Clintons are selling their New York house for one in D.C.. Those Clintons, salt of the Earth, they are.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), December 30, 2000.