Posted on 11/17/2003 10:31:44 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
We don't usually report what's in the National Enquirer, but we have to point out the hypocrisy of the left-wing media establishment, which gladly cited the tabloid's reports on Rush Limbaugh but has been silent on its drug allegations about NBC's Matt Lauer and now new revelations about Democrat diva Barbra Streisand. The Enquirer's Nov. 25 issue charges, "Barbra Streisand's fanatical support of the CBS movie smearing President Ronald Reagan wasn't just politics - it was personal!" Babs' son, Jason Gould, who appeared in her movie "The Prince of Tides," is infected with AIDS, the tabloid says, and she has repeatedly cited the Democrat party line that Reagan should have done more to stop the disease. She said as far back as 1992 that she would "never forgive" Reagan for his positions on AIDS education and research. "Streisand hates Reagan so much it clouds her judgment, insiders insist," the weekly reports. The Enquirer notes that Malibu Barbi has worked on at least three projects with the producers of "The Reagans," Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, "who are known for their gay advocacy projects and remakes of musicals." "There is absolutely no way Barbra didn't see the script before production started," the Enquirer quotes a source as saying. Michael Paranzino, a former GOP congressional staffer who launched BoycottCBS.com, said, "And that is why CBS found themselves just three weeks out, realizing that they had a hatchet job on their hands." So how come the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, CBS etc. cited the Enquirer's reports on Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson but are giving Streisand a pass?
You'd think the original Trapper John McIntyre, of all people, would have successfully educated his son in the joys of heterosexuality.
"Only man in history who ever found fulfillment in the ladies' can of a Boston and Maine Railroad car! When the conductor caught him in there with his Winter Carnival date, she screamed: 'He trapped me!'"
That, plus a fierce political and PR campaign to suppress any mention of the linkage of AIDS with homosexuality. That is my primary recollection of the early Reagan period: the gay lobby did not want homosexuals to be stigmatized, so candid discussion of AIDS was verboten. This was the "AIDS is everybody's disease" period.
Anybody got the "Safe Bowling" cartoon?
Of course, if Reagan's appointees had taken the necessary public health measures, such as mandetory testing, reporting, contact tracing, and closing down the bathhouses and gay sex clubs, Babs would be damning him as a homophobe. There's no pleasing this b****.
No Barbara, it was not Reagan who was to blame but your own party!!!!
In some sense, Reagan deserves some blame because he caved into the gay lobby and went along with the "everyone is at risk" myth.
Ironically, it was gays who suffered most from this foolish public health policy.
He could have instructed the CDC to institute mandetory testing of high-risk population groups (such as gays), trace the contacts of people found to be HIV positive and test them as well, and close bathhouses and other public places facilitating the spread of HIV. Of course, he did not press the CDC to take these measures because of the tremendous political preassure from the gay lobby and their supporters, such as BS.
BS wants her cake and eat it to. The very policies she and others like her so vocierously fought against resulted in the deaths of the very people they were proporting to want to help. Now she wants to blame someone other than herself for the result. How low can you go?
I don't think that step would have been necessary since AIDS is not transmittable through casual contact. Mandetory testing and reporting of at-risk population groups, coupled with contact tracing and a focused campaign teaching at-risk individuals about the dangers of sodomy with multiple partners as well as sharing dirty needles probably would have done the trick.
Unfortunately, instead of focusing specifically on these high-risk behaviors, the CDC and surgeon general wasted resources on perpetuating the lie that everyone is equally at risk.
Reagan could have ordered the CDC to close them if he were willing to take the inevitable political fallout, ironically from the very people who would benefit most from the policy. He was not willing to take this fallout, and given who it was coming from, it is hard to blame him.
Were all in the gay community practicing safe sex?
No. However, if the CDC and Surgeon General had focused their education campaigns on gays and IV users, instead of perpetuating the myth that heterosexuals were at risk, it is likely that the sexual practices of gays would have changed earlier on (as they did eventually) and the spread of the disease would have been curtailed.
Ouch, that's gotta hurt.
In the 1980s, one of the most famous, and most reliable, AIDS-activist applause lines was, "Ronald Reagan has never mentioned the word AIDS".
This later metastasized into, "Reagan could have stopped AIDS, Reagan is ignoring AIDS, Reagan is not spending enough money on AIDS..."
in fact, President Reagan spent wildly disproportionate sums on AIDS research (which paid off, BTW, with the development of effective therapy from a standing start within twelve years-an amazing accomplishment).
If anyone understands the psychological mechanism behind this Reagan fixation, which is today echoed by poor BS and her boy with AIDS, I would like to hear it.
If anything was responsible for setting the AIDS research trajectory in motion, it was Reagan's appointment of Tony Fauci to organize the national effort along with years and years of excessive funds chasing the few good ideas around at the time.
Reagan's fault, indeed!
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