Like I said, you would have sold out Western Europe to the commies
Posted on 08/04/2009 6:50:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
What if a president, on his own initiative, under no demands from staff or from supporters or opponents, set out to spend an unprecedented amount of money on AIDS in Africa, literally billions of dollars, at a time when the nation could not afford it, citing his faith as a primary motivation and, ultimately, saved more than a million lives?
Wouldn’t the story be front-page news, especially in top, liberal newspapers? Wouldn’t it lead on CNN, MSNBC and the “CBS Evening News”? Might statues be erected to the man in the nation’s more “progressive” cities?
What if the president was George W. Bush?
I pose these uncomfortable questions for two reasons: 1) President Bush did precisely that regarding the African AIDS tragedy; and 2) a study claims that Bush’s remarkable action has indeed saved many precious lives.
And as someone who has closely followed Bush’s humanitarian gesture from the outset, I’m not surprised that the former president continues to not receive the accolades he deserves — including even from conservative supporters — for this generous act.
Bush himself realizes the lack of gratitude and media attention. I personally witnessed it very recently, on June 17, when I was in attendance for one of Bush’s first postpresidential speeches, in Erie, Pa. There, too, he mentioned the AIDS initiative — even adding that one of his daughters is in Africa today, working on the epidemic — and, there again, it received no press coverage whatsoever.
It all began in January 2003, during the State of the Union. In a completely unexpected announcement, Bush asked Congress for $15 billion for AIDS in Africa — drugs, treatment and prevention.
America soon learned this was not the typical State of the Union throwaway line: To show his seriousness, Bush followed on April 29 with a press conference in the East Room, where he exhorted Congress to “act quickly” on his “emergency plan.”
Accompanied by the secretary of state, he prodded America’s wealthy allies to join this “urgent work,” this “great effort.” He explained that AIDS was a “dignity of life” issue and “tragedy” that was the “responsibility of every nation.” This was a “moral imperative,” with time “not on our side.”
Bush then shocked the press by pointing to an unusual personal motivation, citing the parable of the Good Samaritan: “[T]his cause is rooted in the simplest of moral duties,” he told journalists. “When we see this kind of preventable suffering … we must act. When we see the wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not, America will not, pass to the other side of the road.”
With amazing quickness, just four weeks later, Bush inked a $15-billion plan and challenged Europe to match the U.S. commitment without delay.
How did the plan work? In April, a major study was released by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. According to the study, the first to evaluate the outcomes of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bush initiative has cut the death toll from HIV/AIDS by more than 10% in targeted African countries from 2003 to 2007.
“It has averted deaths — a lot of deaths,” said Dr. Eran Bendavid, one of the researchers. “It is working. It’s reducing the death toll from HIV. People who are not dying may be able to work and support their families and their local economy.” Co-researcher, Dr. Peter Piot, says PEPFAR “is changing the course of the AIDS epidemic.”
The study — still having received virtually no press attention several months after its release — estimates that the Bush relief plan has saved more than 1 million African lives.
Those are the facts. What about opinion, particularly public opinion?
That brings me back to my initial point. If a Democratic Party president had done this, he would be feted as both a national hero and international hero on his way to a ceremony with the Nobel Committee. George W. Bush, however, is getting very little credit — or, at least, no fanfare.
Again, I’m not surprised. I first wrote about the Bush AIDS initiative in a 2004 book, followed by several articles, including an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, plus many discussions on radio and TV talk shows.
I was struck by two reactions, from the left and the right:
From the left, I got incensed e-mails from Bush-hating elements refusing to concede that Bush did what he did. They said the craziest things, insisting not a dime had been spent and that the program effectively did not even exist. They could not find it within their power to grant that Bush could do something so kind, which they should naturally embrace. I’ve been most disappointed by my fellow Christians in the “social justice” wing — Catholics and Protestants alike — who have been deafeningly silent on a campaign that ought to serve as a poster child for precisely what they advocate.
To be fair, some have stepped up to thank Bush, including no less than Bill Clinton, as well as musician-activist Bob Geldof. But they are the exception. (In a piece for Time, Geldof wrote about the moment he personally asked Bush about the lack of awareness of the AIDS initiative: “Why doesn’t America know about this?” Bush answered: “I tried to tell them. But the press weren’t much interested.”)
From the right, I still get angry e-mails explaining that what Bush did for Africans is not a “core function” of government, certainly not enumerated anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Fiscal conservatives asserted that America could not afford this huge expenditure at a time of post-9/11 recession, burgeoning budget deficits, on the heels of a massive operation in Afghanistan, and as military spending was about to go through the roof as U.S. troops headed for Baghdad.
Technically, or perhaps fiscally, much of this is true.
Yet, to be sure, George W. Bush understood the financial cost — and said so explicitly. Nonetheless, he judged that only America could carry out this “act of compassion” at that critical juncture. He also judged, apparently, that only he, as a Western leader, had the will to do this.
So, he did it. He absorbed the cost to try to save lives.
Well, we now know that the policy has worked — just as, yes, we know it contributed to a record deficit. Still, it is rare when history can so directly, indisputably credit a president for a specific, undeniable policy achievement — a genuinely generous one that clearly emerged from his personal doing, from his heart. Millions of lives have been spared or bettered due to President Bush’s intervention.
But while the policy helped, it never did anything to help George W. Bush’s terrible disapproval rating — and still will not, given its lack of attention.
Well, George W. Bush, the much-ridiculed man of faith — ridiculed often because of his faith — always said he never expected rewards in this lifetime. Here’s one that apparently will need to wait.
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Paul Kengor is author of God and George W. Bush (HarperCollins, 2004)
and professor of political science and director of the Center for Vision & Values
at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
Like I said, you would have sold out Western Europe to the commies
Heh, I knew you were a liar. Funding for the VA rose considerably during Bush's terms.
I find his cold indifference to veterans
I find you to be a worthless troll who is regurgitating the lies of the Democrats from the 2004 campaign.
Do you support his $15,000,000,000 donation of our money for that program?
A simple yes or no will suffice.
Yes I did, and they said that someone who identifies himself as 'investigateworld' keeps calling them to report 'fishy disinformation' from angry 'mobsters'. They say you have the wrong number and they want you to stop calling them.
And the burden of it would have brought the Russians down sooner, rather than later.
I took a look at your profile......I'm not trying to be critical, but it almost looks like Bush worship.
Our government, whether you accept it or not, is run by a group of Oligarchs hell bent on world governance.
Bush and his daddy are part of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc7i0wCFf8g
The team? Is the team the republican party? Is it the democrat party?
No thanx. The republican party left the conservative movement years ago.
I have no beef with you. You sound sincere. I apologize for upsetting you.
2. I fully admit to admiring President Bush, and you will see from my comments here why I do. It is well founded, and based on facts, convictions and love of country. My homepage (most of which was done 6 years ago) reflects that - and btw, I get comments all the time on how "awesome" people think it is, so I don't intend to change it.
3. I see that you are not an across the board conservative, but rather a conspiratorial conservative (that explains alot).
4. Your complete disrespect for two of the most fundamentally decent and honorable Presidents we have ever had is noteworthy.
5. I'm not wasting my time watching a YouTube that someone who doesn't tell the truth recommends. Sorry boy, but you haven't proven to be honest, and therefore, are not worth any more of my time.
6. Your ignorance is astounding. The Republican party and the Conservative movement have never been the same thing. As a conservative who is obviously many, many years older than you, I can say with certainty that the conservative segment of the Republican party have always been only a part of the party, and never the whole. George W. Bush is one of the two most conservative Presidents we have had, the other being Reagan.
7. You have not upset me, though I have clearly upset you by correcting your errors. I figured you wouldn't admit to why you deliberately told an untruth about Bush's being a Texan, but I thought it was worth a try. It obviously wasn't.
It's clearly important to you to hold President Bush in contempt. So be it. I'm curious as to why you didn't respond to joining the fight against Obama, but I'll leave that to your conscience as to why you would rather verbally beat up a good guy rather than working against an evil one.
Some day I hope you identify the correct enemy, and recognize what we had in President Bush. My guess is that you're not yet 30, and you'll have a lot of years to figure it out.
Enough from me. Learn and grow, servantboy. Peace to you.
I’m heartened by the fact that there are an increasing number of folks like yourself who “get it”. The Bushbots, however, still lurk on the FR sight. IMHO these people are RINOs or outright Dem lurkers who desperately need a coopted [by the Demrat Party] GOP to advance their agenda.
I have to say that both Limbaugh and Hannity have disappointed me on the issue. They continue to push the forelorn hope that conservatives can retake the GOP. I don’t understand how that can happen. Certainly the Demrat Party’s proxys (RINOs) are unlikely to relinquish their control. Moreover, the RINOs also control many state so-called Republican Partys.
I'm as far from a RINO as a human being can get, and have never voted for a Dem in my long life.
You don't have to be a conspiratorial, small picture, angry malcontent to be truly conservative. In fact, those of us who are across the board, big picture (the big picture being deep love of this great Republic we call America) conservatives tend to be more completely and authentically conservative than many of you who are caught up by the emotion du jour and conspiracies.
As one who has fought against the true RINO's in my state party, I can say without reservation, that you haven't got a clue as to what you're talking about.
(But I have no doubt that you'll keep talking, because that's probably all you do. Bet you've never lifted a finger for the conservative cause, have you?)
They must be the guys that on all the threads about the horrors of what Obama is doing to destroy our country come on and say..."Oh yeah.....well Bush was bad too."
Wrong enemy. Are they hopeless, or will they join us in the fight for America before Obama takes away all we hold dear?
Some are Ron Paul supporters and others are DU plants. They both blame America's foreign policy for terrorist attacks and pretend that anything and everything that is wrong in the world is in no way the fault of Obama and the Democrat congress but rather the Bush administration, so they are essentially the same. The only way you can tell the difference between these nut jobs is the Paul supporter is the guy who wants to legalize heroin.
But the refusal to go after Obama while lying about and bashing Bush points to a DU plant.
Maybe I should have asked a question about heroin, and the mystery would have been solved. :)
Folks like myself will someday be protecting folks like you.
Count on it.
In your ongoing fantasies......
Folks like yourself, in a WWII combat situation, (IF you were brave enough to serve - which I doubt) would have been aiming your guns at the Brits along side you because they weren't 'conservative' enough, and would be ignoring the Nazi enemy in front of you. You'd be demanding complete alignment of thought from your cohorts and spitting stupid insults at them while ignoring the dangerous enemy aiming their weapons at your heads.
If you think you'd actually "protect" America when you don't even recognize who the enemy is, you are living in a fantasy world.
Folks like me are in the trenches. We are the mob. Folks like my son are risking their lives for folks like you, so you can sit home in your comfy chair at your computer and bash President Bush and folks like him, and like his parents.
Your chutzpah isn't fooling anyone servantboy. You've got your sights on the wrong guys, and in the mean time, the real enemy is trying to destroy and devour the country you claim to care about...............and it doesn't bother you a bit.
That's what I call misdirected anger. And that's what I call phony.
>>IF you were brave enough to serve - which I doubt<<
Oh my gosh.......your like a pshyco ex-girlfriend.
Enough of the stalking already.
Go away!
Thanks for the ping, NYer.
I sure miss President Bush. God bless him and give him long life.
I am the mob. Get to work, and leave me alone. I have things to do to preserve the Republic.
You may have the last word. I don't want it.
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