Media Won't Report on Bush Malaria Initiative

By Richard Newcomb (Bio | Archive)
October 19, 2007 - 13:04 ET

Since 2000, the mainstream media has conducted a war against the Bush Adminstration the likes of which have not been seen since their equally vitriolic campaign against Richard Nixon. They have refused to publish anything positive about Bush or his Administration, they have manufactured scandals out of nothing (Valerie Plame) while doing their best to expose secret operations that are protecting Americans and they have consistently refused to accurately report the good economic news.

Today comes even more evidence of just how badly the press has failed in their duty to report to the American public. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft corporation, spoke to a forum to discuss fighting malaria. As reported by Power Line, Gates said,

Today, malaria kills more than one million people every year, most of them children in Africa. That's the equivalent of losing every student in the New York City public school system in one year.

We know that eradicating malaria is an audacious goal. But advances in science and medicine, new political commitments, and the dedication of people like you have given the world an historic opportunity to conquer malaria. It won't be easy and it won't happen quickly, but I'm optimistic that we can make this disease history.

At the forum in Seattle, Melinda and I called on the U.S. presidential candidates to commit to expand the President's Malaria Initiative, a great program started by President Bush. I hope you will join us in asking all of the candidates to make this pledge and keep the fight against malaria on the national agenda.

Funny- I don't recall any press organization ever mentioning that President Bush had started an anti-malaria program? Just as they prefer to downplay this Administration's efforts in Africa (which dwarfed the better-known efforts of Clinton), and snipe at the President whenever and wherever they can. As one example of the disparity in how Bush and Clinton were covered on the topic, The Washington Post published an article on Bush's African efforts in 2005- on Page 22. A less-expansive Clintonian intiative received Page 2 coverage.

I would wish that the Press would perform their duty to inform and report fairly, but alas that is a duty that the Press is all too unfamiliar with. So we can only hope that the citizenry relies less and less on these dinosaurs of the Old Media, and remove their patronage from the corporations who employ these propagandists. The sooner, the better. Cross-posted on StoneHeads.


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I'm shocked!

October 19, 2007 - 13:29 ET by c5then

Do you mean to say that the media have failed to report an amazing humanitarian effort that was started by GWB and a republican administration? I can't believe that their well honed and ethical journalistic standards would allow them to simply ignore a story like this simply because they didn't agree ideologically with the President.



The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Fred08.com

They'll ignore it not just

October 19, 2007 - 13:48 ET by danbo

They'll ignore it not just because of Bush but also because it'll highlight a deadly disease that was almost eliminated untill the environmentalist saved us from DDT. 

With  over 95 million dead since the disuse of DDT;  Rachael Carsion and the environmentalist have killed more people then Hitler.

Malaria is the greens legacy of death.

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

Yes, the problem of malaria

October 19, 2007 - 13:45 ET by dscott

Yes, the problem of malaria is easily solved and once almost was eradicated, but thanks to humanitarians <sarcasm> like Rachel Carson, DDT was banned even with proper application which doesn't hurt the environment all in the name of the precautionary principle.  Rachel Carson and those who helped ban DDT are directly responsible for mass murder, especially of poor black people in Africa. 

It takes a Repub to clean up the messes of liberals.  You would think by now people would have learned their lesson, but oh no, let's just keeping repeating the same ones so we can become experts at failure.  Is this a result of stupidity?  You be the judge...  There is a line between malice and stupidity, it's called gross negligence or rather depraved indifference.  Who knew about it, what did they know, and when did they know it?

And the next fiasco resulting in mass death by starvation is brewing with AGW and biofuels.

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity

I will tell you something

October 19, 2007 - 13:55 ET by alamojb

I will tell you something else they mainly ignore.  Bush and Wind Power.  The media likes to talk about alternative energy, but they ignore Bush's role in jump starting  Texas Wind Energy development while he was Governor.  "Big Oil" Texas, not Liberal, "Green" California, is now the leading State in Wind Generated Electricity.  They continue to mostly ignore it, and I suspect it is partly because of Pres Bush's role in getting it there.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/09/25/texas_is_more_hospitable_than_mass_to_wind_farms/?page=1

 

"Green California" Wind Gernerated

October 19, 2007 - 14:56 ET by merlin61

The most wind generated in California comes from

Sean Penn, and all the other Hollywoodites that

hate Bush and anything George Bush does.   We

could do without that type of wind and it does

nothing for the ecology.

Richard. Aids & Malaria effort by Bush

October 19, 2007 - 13:58 ET by Gary Hall

Richard. So much to say. Thanks. In addition to the 4-10 million folks in Africa who died from civil war and Genocide after Bill Clinton promised "Never Again," you've hit on a big one. I posted on the media's bias on President Bush's HIV/Aids leadership one before, here: Media On Bush and HIV/AIDS, or “Praise the Lord and Pass the Antiretrovirals” . Out there in the real world, even Unicef has made note that Bush has not only been a leader here; a lone piece in the International Tribune, Sep't. 13, 2007 marked history and made tribute:

Interestingly, Unicef officials said, the new estimate comes from household surveys done in 2005 or earlier, so they barely reflect the huge influx of money that has poured into third world health in the last few years from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Gates Foundation; and the Bush administration's twin programs to fight AIDS and malaria. For that reason, the next five-year survey should show even greater improvement, they said.

"We feel we're at a tipping point now," said Dr. Peter Salama, Unicef's chief medical officer. "In a few years' time, it will all translate into a very exciting drop."

I'd bet that less than 1/2 % of voters in America heard the news. And since then, of course, Bush has requested the congress to double our commitment from his landmark $15 billion 5-year plan to a $30 billion 5-year extension of that plan, when it expires at the end of the year.

The media black out on informing the public, and on issues on which especially the liberals say they care deeply about, is surely a situation where one must consider the "media conspiracy" component. I had noted before:

In the spring of 2006 Newsweek published a special issue of their weekly magazine titled, "Aids at 25", in which 40 pages are devoted to the HIV/Aids history and the effort to win the battle. President Bush and his leadership is a no-show.

 In a full-blown history of Aids, Newsweek opened with, “He [Reagan] didn't publicly utter the term "AIDS" until 1987. They just never miss the opportunity, do they? Newsweek did, of course, afford former President Bill Clinton, not only a full-page picture of himself but Clinton’s own personal account' a 1,317 word self-legacy, “My Quest to Improve Care.” To his credit, Clinton does mention the “Bush Administration,” but not until the next to last paragraph, right along with the Gates Foundation, but only after mentioning himself – the “I” word – 26 times.

Finally, almost at the very end of the special report, on page 64, we find the caption: "Only 3% of Americans know that the Bush administration has more than doubled U.S. Spending to combat HIV/Aids in Developing countries.”

Only 3% - by golly, I wonder why?

The interesting and sad truth here, as we tune in almost every day and witness the MSM not only re-writing Clinton's history on the issue, but openly pushing the view, that his legacy here is the stuff history is made for, is that the media knows damn good and well that Clinton missed the chance to lead on the then spiraling out of control HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa and Asia, and because of that, millions more people would contract the disease and ultimately die from it.

This piece (and there were many more like it written by the leftist press - they knew, and they were sick with disappointment) from media favorite and Washington editor of "The Nation," David Corn, sets the record straight: Too little, too late - How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa?  In a true Clintonesque understanding, David Corn asks why, and answers the qestion: "

The prevailing view was, these people should die quietly.

and..

A cynical guess at Clinton's motivations: AIDS in Africa, it doesn’t poll well.

Geo.Bush and AIDS in Africa

October 19, 2007 - 15:01 ET by merlin61

When and if, and (I hope they don't), if the Dems win, the whole world will be saved.   The MSM

will  tout all their wonderous deeds, and you will

see wonderful, wonderful miracles occur because

they are so smart and all- knowing.  NOT!!!!!!!

Well....(head tilt)

October 19, 2007 - 16:20 ET by pbanks7

You know Reagan said all gays with AIDS deserved it. I saw it in a movie. Bush is surely the same way. <sarc off>. 

  Ignorance is bliss. It's easier to repeat a mindless slogan than to do some actual research.

AIDS

October 19, 2007 - 16:15 ET by jmad627

I seem to remember that Richard Gere, of all people, caught a lot of grief from the left for actually complementing President Bush for his continuing efforts i.e. spending money to combat AIDS in Africa.  He subsequently attacked to President for something else in order to mollify his leftist allies, & maintain his status.

I may be incorrect with what I just posted, does anyone else remember this?

jamd ..

October 19, 2007 - 16:39 ET by Gary Hall

Briefly, that's about right. Gere caught grief for critizing Clinton for doing nothing in the Aids battle - and complemented Bush in the process.  Somewhere in there, I believe I remember Bill Clinton firing back at him.

But not to fear - Gere is back to being a true Bush hater, these days.

For a real review of the ineptness of President Clinton on this issue, read the link I provided above to the David Corn article in 2002.  Every Clinton lover should be tied to a chair and forced to read it, and a few others - for a reality check. gary