Not sure what to make of the fact that the greatest buzz of CTIA Wireless 2007 is for former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Bush just entered to a rousing standing ovation. After lavishing some praise on CTIA head Steve Largent, #41 got off a few funny lines, talking about his Blackberry addiction—says the hour he’s here is the longest he can go without it. He calls himself a black-belt e-mailer, speaking of sitting behind home plate at baseball games trading emails with people watching him on TV, telling them he’ll wave and getting emails back saying they saw him. Now he’s telling anecdotes about how important telecommunications was to him as president.
—Bush: Telecommunications is opening the way in countries like China. More democracy, more freedom.
—Says adversarial press is going to turn off a lot of people from entering public service.
Clinton: Another huge standing o. Clinton opens with a comment about his punishment for beating the first president Bush—he now has to be his straight man.
—Mentions that Largent—who introduced him by saying they worked together when Largent was in Congress—actually was in the Newt Gingrich Republican faction and he preferred to think of him as a football player.
—He reels off numbers about the economics of the info industry.
—Mentions that half the world lives on $2 a day and most of what the people in this room do doesn’t affect them.
—I’m not getting this all—although I’ll post the audio if it turns out—but his message is a tad more serious than that of #41. Talks about how partnership matters and how important it is to remember that people have multiple identities.
- Examples of how technology can be incorporated to improve daily life in even the most remote areas using cell phones and solar power.
—Talks about how the introduction of cell phones increases economic opportunity even when nothing else changes. Cell phones are changing lives in Haiti.
—Kiva.org (Clinton said Kiva.com) lets you invest in people using microcredit loans with $25, $50. (Will be interesting to see if they get a spike from this.) You ought to be grateful to be part of a business that makes this possible ...
—You don’t want historians 100 years from now to look back and say they had this wonderful technology and used it keep the divisions of the early 20th century intact. Think about that in the years ahead and look for little ways we can use technology to come together and stop people who divide us.
This was about as on point as it gets. Now the two are taking questions from a PriceWaterhouse rep; the company is sponsoring the event. 
—Clinton had a lot to say about how blogging may transform politics and how it already has changed the balance of media power. He talked about how anyone can have a blog and how some bloggers can concentrate on one or two stories a day, focusing on the facts, unlike major media, which has to deal with a much broader agenda. Clinton: “I think all these blog sites are creating a whole new opportunity for public debate that may revitalize our politics in an old-fashioned, good way.”
Audio/Video: You can download the audio here (65 minutes, 30 megs). You can see video excerpts at the CTIA Wireless 2007 site; Day 3 highlights.