Bush’s global AIDS initiative comes under fire

Of all the issues raised in this year’s State of the Union address, Bush sounded genuinely concerned about the global fight against AIDS.

“Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many [in Africa] do not seek treatment,” Bush said. “Almost all who do are turned away. A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, ‘We have no medicines. Many hospitals tell people, you’ve got AIDS, we can’t help you. Go home and die.’ In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words. AIDS can be prevented. Anti-retroviral drugs can extend life for many years. And the cost of those drugs has dropped from $12,000 a year to under $300 a year — which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp. Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.”

The same speech saw the president request that Congress “commit $15 billion over the next five years” to “turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.”

So far, so good. Many on the left were surprised to see Bush show concern on the issue, and his budget request drew uncharacteristic praise. The American Prospect, a liberal monthly magazine, for example, lauded Bush’s “heroic” plan for African AIDS assistance. The New York Times editorial board, which rarely speaks well of the president, said the budget request was a “commendable nod to the compassionate side of compassionate conservatism.”

The praise, however, came before the administration revealed the details of Bush’s plan. It’s funny how specifics can sometimes make a fine, altruistic idea somewhat less admirable.

Like columnist Paul Krugman said in February, “These days, whenever Mr. Bush makes a promise — like his new program to fight AIDS in Africa — experienced Bushologists ask, ‘O.K., that’s the bait, where’s the switch?'”

The switch was with the funding itself. Bush wasn’t literally making a promise he didn’t intend to keep. He successfully backed a measure to direct $15 billion to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. The money, however, wasn’t “new” money, it was just redirecting old money.

A week after the SOTU, Josh Marshall alerted his readers to a Brookings Institute policy analysis that explained that most of the money Bush wants to spend to combat AIDS is money we’re already spending to fight a variety of other African diseases, including malaria. In other words, the administration was proposing that we simply take funds we’re using to fight one disease and redirect the money to fight a different disease, a practice Marshall accurately described as “robbing from Peter to pay Paul.”

Nevertheless, Democrats have been generally supportive of the president’s AIDS initiative and have backed legislation to spend the $15 billion. I suspect the Dems figure they’re lucky Bush isn’t cutting all funding for combating all diseases.

The surprising thing, however, is the opposition generated by conservatives.

It appears that Bush, despite his almost-ludicrous popularity among Republicans, has not yet reached the status where he gets whatever he wants from his own fellow conservatives without some carping. It’s happening with the tax cut, it happened on ANWR, and it’s even happening on the global AIDS initiative.

A bipartisan measure for the $15 billion for African AIDS treatment and prevention is co-sponsored by Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), ranking Dem on the committee. Earlier this month, their legislation — backed wholeheartedly by the White House — passed the committee with unanimous support from Democrats, but without a single vote from GOP conservatives.

Why wouldn’t conservatives want to go along with one of Bush’s State of the Union goals? Because the money to combat AIDS will not mandate instructions to Africans on abstinence and monogamy.

I wish this were just some bad joke, but it’s true. In Africa, 30 million people have AIDS, one-tenth of whom are children. Less than 1% of these people are getting the medicinal treatment they need, and conservatives in Congress and the religious right are struggling to restrict funding to fight AIDS because some people might end up getting condoms.

One of the loudest complainers has been Ken Connor, head of the Family Research Council, an influential religious right policy group. (As you might recall, Connor was the one condemning the head of the Republican National Committee for talking to a gay group in March.)

“[The AIDS initiative] is about politics,” Connor told the New York Times. “The AIDS lobby will be very happy, the homosexual lobby will be very happy, the condom crowd will be happy, the Planned Parenthood folks will be happy. That’s not the president’s base.”

You know who else will be happy? Some of the 30 million people who will die of AIDS unless they get treatment. Connor might be willing sacrifice these people — because they’re not part of the Republican “base” — but I’m glad to see there are at least a few people in Washington from both parties who aren’t quite that cruel.