There was a terrific editorial in the New York Times yesterday. (That is a sentence I never thought I’d write, but then again Maureen Dowd is on vacation so anything is possible.)

Nicolas Kristof set out to prove that liberals are more generous with their time and money than conservatives but he was shocked to find that it wasn’t true.  Thus the title of his article, “Bleeding Heart Tightwads”.

As Mr. Kristof  eloquently says: “Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.” Read the whole thing at  http://tinyurl.com/8vvhds

I couldn’t have said it better myself. 

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that all liberals are cheapskates. I believe most people are generous regardless of their faith, race, financial status or political philosophy. But it is no surprise that many of the people that are so eager to take taxpayer money at the point of a gun have shown no interest in personal charity.

For example, in 1997 Vice President Al Gore had an income of nearly $200,000 and reported only $353 in charitable contributions according to CNN. That was a whopping 17/100ths of a percent of Al Gore’s income. Pitiful for anyone but especially for a multimillionaire with presidential aspirations. And now he dares to lecture us about global warming as he rides in his personal jet and floats around on his 100 foot houseboat.

Or perhaps we could look to our Vice President-elect Senator Joe Biden. In 2007  Senator Biden claimed contributions of $995 which was  0.3% of his $320,000 income.  Pretty sad but better than Gore. Barack Obama did make generous charitable contributions of $240,000 which was 5.7% of his $4.2 million dollar income in 2007. For comparison sake, John McCain contributed $105,000  (or 26%) of his $405,000 income.

So now that the evidence has been printed in the New York Times perhaps liberals will understand that the phrase “compassionate conservativism” is redundant.