Bono's Calling

Not everyone kneels before him. Novelist Paul Theroux and New York University professor William Easterly have repeatedly mocked Bono's efforts as celebrity aggrandizement that overemphasizes outside aid as a fix for poverty. Former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, while praising Bono's efforts on the African continent, quibbles with the actual results -- saying that the average poor African gets fewer dollars in aid today than pre-1980 levels.

But that hasn't deterred Bono from his efforts here. During a recent meeting in the DATA offices, Bono sits with Drummond; former Republican congressman Jim Kolbe; the Brookings Institution's Lael Brainard; Mort Halperin, director of U.S. advocacy at the Open Society Institute; and DATA's policy director, Erin Thornton.

During the brainstorming session, Bono asks: "Do you think it's time for a Cabinet position for development?"

"Having done an 18-month bipartisan commission that came to that decision," Brainard says, "I'd say yes. But the real question is, do you put that on your list of priorities?"

"I think DATA should stay out of this fight," Halperin says. "It's born to lose. It's not going to happen."

When it is suggested that structural reform is boring and might need a household name to push it, Bono asks, "Could Pat Leahy do that? . . . He's a fantastic orator. A gigantic personality."

"And he loves his job," Halperin says.

"He also has a gigantic heart," Bono says, and he seems to genuinely believe that he could inspire President Bush not only to set up a new Cabinet post, but to put Pat Leahy in it.

And then he is gone, off to catch a private jet to New York, where he will greet the famous of that metropolis by their first names.

He leaves behind a city awash in its own bile. We are once again faced with our own disagreements over earmarking and vetoes and overrides and cots. What we do now is wait -- wait for Bono to return, the one person who can unite us.