I stumbled onto this via a posting on a newlist for a radio production consortium. Its a phone call that President Bill Clinton made to the crazy leftist radio show Democracy Now, on Pacific public radio stations.

Now, this post isn’t a compliment towards Democracy Now, it isn’t a compliment of the policies and politics discussed by President Bill Clinton, and it certainly isn’t a compliment of the previous Administration’s intelligence and thoughtfulness versus our current Administration (a mediocre and specious argument, if you ask me).

But it is a journalist’s fond remembrance of an era when our President would engage the electorate.

On a day that the New York Times’ front-paged Jamie Lynn Spears, NPR’s Bryant Park Project (the new test morning show — call it NPR, NOW FOR FOR KIDS!) interviewed Chicago Tribune Africa correspondent Paul Salopek.

Read it, listen to it. He really does a good job of exposing why we ignore heartbreaking, world-affecting stories like the tragedy in Congo. And why we choose to care about some conflicts, instead of others.