Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road

Time ^ | Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008 | BOB GELDOF

[Freeport]

I gave the president my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.

The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"

"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."

It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it. 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. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.

[Freeport]

Wow... Read the whole article it's a... I have not, the words.

And this from a guy who's greatest claim to fame was a song about a bad Monday morning and a psycho mucician...

[Mobile Vulgus]

I read it. The guy is a half literate fool.

[Freeport]

Maybe so, but he has the forethought to separate issues and stick with the one he’s working on.

[deadrock]

Graham Hancocks ‘Lords of Poverty’ details the corruption with ALL aid agents.

[cripplecreek]

"Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?"

That's just plain funny.

[cripplecreek]

"Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?"

That's just plain funny.

[Digital Sniper]

Wow...Bob Geldof is actually miffed that truly important people don't hang on his every word. Talk about being a self-important twit. Yecch.

[angcat]

Sounds very disrespectful to me.

[Freeport]

Yeah.. It was what kept me reading.

[Names Ash Housewares]

Geldof in time I bet will eventually accept that Bush was correct on Iraq as well.

[Tallguy]

Dealing with guys like Geldof is very difficult. If you do anything, they will point elsewhere & criticize you for not acting there. Remove a murdering dictator in Iraq & George Clooney is killing you for not acting in Darfur.

Still, I have to hand it to Geldof on one thing. He is able to set aside his disagreements with GWB long enough to give him credit for a few things. He's a bigger man than I thought.

[rintense]

It isn't a bad article. It's clear by the writing that Geldof struggles with liking the man. Snide criticism and reluctant praise show that Geldof simply can not fathom that you can actually like a person and disagree with various policies/views- and remain civil. That was the example Bush was giving him. He didn't know what to do, mainly because, if a liberal doesn't like what you stand for, then he doesn't like you. It challenged everything Geldof himself stood for.

And that's a good thing.

[JennysCool]

Geldof in time I bet will eventually accept that Bush was correct on Iraq as well.

We will learn so many currently-classified things over the next several years about how this Administration kept America safe post-9/11 while at the same time battling a shrieking army of clueless, spiteful, and sometimes traitorous yay-hoos.

[ravingnutter]

FYI...a recent related article:

Bob Geldof in Rwanda gives Bush his props ("has done more than any other president so far")

Excerpt:

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof, "has done more than any other president so far."

"This is the triumph of American policy really," he said. "It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion."

"What's in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing," Mr. Geldof said.

Mr. Geldof said that the president has failed "to articulate this to Americans" but said he is also "pissed off" at the press for their failure to report on this good news story.

"You guys didn't pay attention," Geldof said to a group of reporters from all the major newspapers.

[Para-Ord.45]

“Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?”

GWB, “ Well, since it`s written by a leftist I`ll have an interpreter translate the orwellian double speak and get back to ya.”

[Blind Eye Jones]

Geldof should educate himself on Iraq, instead of pushing the old “freedom at the end of a gun” line. But he seems to be into simple one liners — and that one he used is wrong.

[HoosierHawk]

Thanks for posting.

[Keltik]

“Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?” he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. “Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?”

---

It’s a steal of a George S. Kaufman joke from the ‘50s.

Does ANYBODY believe this exchange took place?

[SuziQ]

"He (Tony Blair) said you don't see color. To remember that you employed the first black secretaries of state, that your worldview had changed since you began, and that Condi was a big influence with regard to Africa." "So you were a big influence on me," he says to Condi. "I don't think so ..." "Nah, I've always been like this." "But now you sound like a hippy, for God's sake," I say. He laughs.

The typical Time magazine reader will likely miss this pertinent fact of color-blindness about George W. Bush.

[SuziQ]

But it is clear that since its mendacious beginnings, this war has thrown up a series of abuses that disgrace the U.S.'s central proposition. In the need to find morally neutralizing euphemisms to describe torture and abuse, the language itself became tortured and abused. Rendition, waterboarding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib — all are codes for what America is not. America has mortally compromised its own essential values of civil liberty while imposing its own idea of freedom on others who may not want it.

Yeah, well, there's the "boob-bait for the liberal Bubbas". Geldof lumps all of the interrogation tactics into one big 'torture' category, because that's what he hears in the news. I doubt he's actually done any in-depth investigation into what goes on at either Abu Ghraib or Gauntanamo.

As for 'rendition', I frankly don't have a problem with it, as long as the people being questioned are CLEARLY terrorists. They're out to kill anyone with whom they disagree, whether they're 'infidels' or their co-religionists.