Geldof on Bush: "he's curious and quick."

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Joel Pett Lexington Herald-Leader Feb 20, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

The best read of the day may well be this Time Magazine piece by Bob Geldof, a report of Geldof’s time with President Bush during his recent, and mostly ignored, tour of Africa.

To start with, the reader gets a taste of just how powerfully America has been acting for good in the matter of AIDS in Africa. The numbers are just astonishing.

It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge.
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So why doesn’t America know about this? “I tried to tell them. But the press weren’t much interested,” says Bush. It’s half true. There are always a couple of lines in the State of the Union, but not enough so that anyone noticed, and the press really isn’t interested. For them, like America itself, Africa is a continent of which little is known save the odd horror.

There is some truth to that, but I suspect that the press would be more interested in all of this if only the president had a D after his name, too.

Read the whole article – it is quite enlightening. I was particularly interested in reading the president’s thoughts on the innovative idea of training African nations in conflict resolution:

People in Africa are worried about this new, seemingly military command. I thought it was an inappropriate and knee-jerk U.S. militaristic response to clumsy Chinese mercantilism that could only end in tears for everyone concerned. (And so did many Africans, if the local press was anything to go by.)

“That’s ridiculous,” says Bush. “We’re still working on it. We’re trying to build a humanitarian mission that would train up soldiers for peace and security so that African nations are more capable of dealing with Africa’s conflicts. You agree with that dontcha?” Indeed I do….Trouble is, it sounds to me a lot like what the U.S. did in the early Vietnam years with the advisers who became something else. Mission creep, I think it’s called.

“No, that won’t happen,” Bush insists. “We’re still working on what exactly it’ll be, but it will be a humanitarian mission, training in peace and security, conflict resolution … It’s a new concept and we want to get it right.” He muses for a while on the U.S. and China, and their policies on Africa — Africans are increasingly resentful that the Chinese bring their own labor force and supplies with them. Then, in what I took to be a reference to the supposed Chinese influence over the cynical Khartoum regime, Bush adds, “One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest.”

Geldof has a blind spot on Iraq and I think he should have just engaged the president on the question when he seemed to want to. But I also suspect that the press is so heavily invested in the Iraq narrative they’ve built that had Geldof engaged, TIME would not have printed it anyway.

But I do like that he gives the president serious credit not just for his humanitarian aid to Africa, but for his smarts in general. The press narrative since 1999, has been that Bush is “incurious and slow.” Geldof writes precisely the opposite, noting after a discussion of Africa and trade tariffs, “he’s curious and quick.”

And while in not engaging the president on Iraq is a bit unfair because does not allow rebuttal to Geldof’s own meme’d musings, the Irish rocker does allow Bush to make his case as to the steadiness of his interest in Africa, going back to his debates with Gore.

I suggest that his commitment to Africa has been revolutionary in its interest curve. “That’s not true,” he says. “In my second debate with Al Gore, I came out for debt cancellation and AIDS relief. I called AIDS a genocide. I felt and still do that it was unacceptable to stand by and let a generation be eradicated.”

All in all, yes, this is a very good piece for Bush. And for Geldof, who shows himself to be a passionate and smart fellow who is able to look beyond his ingrained ideologies to give props where due.

I thought his “who will read it to you, Mr. President” remark was so disrespectful – both to Bush and to his office – as to warrant a good smack upside the head, but I credit Geldof with including that passage as a means to juxtapose his own increased respect for Bush by article’s end.

Slightly O/T: Geldof notes in his piece that the rest of the world, while happy to bloviate on issues, rarely takes constructive action on urgent issues, and he writes:

At our hotel in Ghana, the porter carrying my bag said they had thrown out all the other guests because “the President of the World was coming.”

I think perhaps the Ghanese porter was correct. Bush is “the President of the World.” For all his mistakes and weaknesses, I don’t see anyone on the political horizon – here or abroad – who really is ready to step into his shoes internationally. I am seriously hopeful about Bobby Jindal down the road, though.

Welcome Hot Air readers – thanks, Ed Morrissey for the link!. Writing here has been rather Lent-heavy, recently, but today we’re also talking about The Clintonian Conundrum, we’re remembering George Gobel, Dean Martin and Bob Hope on the the Tonight Showand we’re having a little cartoon fun, too!