Bush’s AIDS Hypocrisy Cons The NY Times

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The NY Times bought Bush’s lies in reporting on his laudatory comments about Uganda’s AIDS prevention policy as if he supported condom use. Just one week earlier, Bush’s Centers for Disease Control had issued vicious anti-condon regulations denying federal HIV-prevention funding to any organization that failed to include information on the lack of effectiveness of condoms in their educational efforts. And it was not as if the Times would have had to look hard to find criciticism of the CDC stance. And this is not just another story about the bottomfeeding dishonesty of our dysadministration. Discouraging condom use kills.

“There’s only one word to describe the effect of the new CDC guidelines: lethal. And Bush’s campaign boilerplate on AIDS in Philadelphia was “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” bilge. Too bad the Times didn’t notice.” (The Nation [via walker])

Correction: Rivka did the responsible thing; she looked at the actual CDC guidelines, and concludes that Ireland’s position in The Nation is a distortion. The central point stands — Bush’s compliments to Uganda are hypocrisy. It is not as if Bush actually does support condom use, but the CDC regulations are not the place to look for the evidence.

“There’s plenty of outrage to be found in the Bush Administration’s approach to HIV prevention – say, in their relentless pushing of abstinence-only sex ed programs for teenagers and their political scrutiny of NIH grants. It’s not surprising that people immediately leap to think the worst of anything associated with the present government. But in this particular case, I think that Doug Ireland is frothing up a lot of public anxiety over very minor changes.”