I can see it now. The world will be very different. The president of the United States will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifesaving aid to victims of disease in Africa. Government and civic leaders from Europe and Asia will express their admiration. Americans will walk a little taller. Barack Obama will bow his head as the ribboned medal is extended.... .
But wait. The president who deserves such an honor is in office now. It is George W. Bush who has devoted so much time, energy and money (well, our money, but it was legal) to fighting AIDS and other diseases in Africa...
But for the most part, the beautiful people in America - the Hollywood and university types, the book and magazine publishers, and of course, the major media - have shown complete indifference to George W. Bush's dedication to a cause they purport to value. In fact, they've pointedly ignored it. It goes without saying that if Mr. Obama does even half of what Mr. Bush has done for AIDS sufferers in Africa, he will be - in the eyes of those same people - a candidate for canonization.
Of course the left can say whatever they like about George Bush and the war in Iraq and the war on terror. But when he does something completely in line with their own stated principles and values, it is simply mean-spirited of them to deny him his due.
Discuss.
(Personally, I think taking care of AIDS victims in Africa is the easy way out. Where was the same money for domestic AIDS cases? Of course, he did create PEMS, the once-hated, now-vaulted "HIPAA-violating" tracking system that mysteriously discovered that we were drastically underreporting new HIV cases every year. Strange, that.)
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