That's not just coffee you smell.

Like Folger's Coffee, American Express is doing a campaign to raise money to reopen the Statue of Liberty. Well, sort of. American Express is going to give $3 million to the campaign to raise money for security upgrades to the Statue, without which the most visible symbol of America's freedom will remain closed. (Which is apparently how the Administration wants it - spending $87 billion to line Halliburton's corporate pockets and to rebuild Iraq clearly has a higher priority than the Statue of Liberty.)

Certainly it's a good thing that American Express is funding the security upgrades, and they've helped with the Statue before, helping to raise money in the 80's for the restoration of the Statue. But what they're doing this time strikes me as a bit unseemly: the $3 million they've pledged will be in the form of a direct contribution of $500,000 and a contribution of 1 cent for every American Express charge made or check used during December 2003 and January 2004, up to a maximum of $2.5 million. How is that unseemly? Well, because so many consumers automatically bill monthly payments to their credit cards, American Express is going to hit the 250 million transaction mark even if American Express cardholders make no special purchases on behalf of the Statue of Liberty. Further, American Express is spending a lot of advertising money telling about its donations - full-page ads in the NY Times, TV commercials with Martin Scorsese, other national print ads - which one estimate puts at already $1 million; an awful lot of back-patting.

Oh, and as Folger's did with regard to the consumer's purchase of coffee, in small print American Express makes it clear that its "Donations are not tax-deductible by Cardmembers."

(You can also contribute directly to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, and if you contribute $100 or more, you'll receive a DVD of the new Scorsese-produced and -narrated documentary on the Statue of Liberty, to air on the History Channel on Jan. 15. And that contribution would be deductible.)