Weasels vs. AIDS Relief

Washington Post ^ | January 28, 2009 | Michael Gerson

[neverdem]

Some of the personnel stumbles of the Obama administration -- including the abortive nomination of Bill Richardson as commerce secretary -- resulted from incompetent vetting. William Lynn's reception as deputy secretary of defense has been complicated by hypocrisy -- the administration's attempt to gain political credit for a restrictive lobbying ban it swiftly violated to get a qualified appointee.

But one major personnel error was made from malice. And it calls into question the depth and duration of President Obama's "new politics."

During Obama's transition, Dr. Mark Dybul was initially asked to stay on as the coordinator of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for several months until a replacement could be found and confirmed. Because Dybul was the main architect of the program and one of its guiding visionaries, few were surprised by the offer. With Ambassador Randall Tobias, Dybul organized the most staggeringly successful foreign assistance effort since the Marshall...

--snip--

It is difficult to imagine what vision of public service could cause any Obama official to celebrate a victory by sabotaging a good man and a good cause. And it is difficult to conceive what political gain Obama has achieved. This type of captivity to extreme interests is precisely what has discredited Democrats so often in the past. It is a kind of politics with all the "newness" of a purge, all the "freshness" of a mugging.

Governing, admittedly, is not badminton. But it costs little to be graceful. And pettiness, in this case, may impose a cost on the world's most vulnerable people.

"We, who seven years ago," wrote William Butler Yeats, "Talked of honour and of truth,/Shriek with pleasure if we show/The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth." For some in the Obama administration, the baring of the weasel's tooth took merely a day...

[neverdem]

Gerson epitomized compassionate conservatism.

[CMoran325]

Dybul was making great strides, had bi-partisan cooperation, and was openly gay to boot — but not good enough to the lock-step pro-abortion crowd.

How long are we going to let BHO ignore the vast majority of Americans, eschew common sense, and continue to kowtow to this fringe?

[CMoran325]

Oh and nevdem, you meant that Dybul epitomized compassionate conservatism, right?

As the last line of the article by Gerson says,

“...none of this should bother Mark Dybul, who sleeps well in the knowledge that he helped save millions of lives — an experience his critics will never share.”