They’ve dwarfed all previous amounts of funding and condoms provided to Africa. Yet this is what you know and will refer to when discussing it.

“Got a link for any of that unfairness and ignorance, Kilo?”

Do we need to leave this page to confirm that ?

Bloggers don’t need a stereotype of Christian Republicans to go after the Bush administration’s pandering to the TheoCon Right at the expense of lives of people with AIDS in Africa and elsewhere. The Boston Globe took a look at the Bush policies and practices — not the rhetoric — and the picture wasn’t pretty:

Under pressure from Dobson, members of Congress, and Towey’s office at the White House, USAID officials promoted groups favoring abstinence as the prime means of preventing AIDS. The officials gave funds to one such group despite a review panel’s determination it was not suitable, and allegedly stripping money from a group that criticized the administration’s emphasis on abstinence.

And USAID required groups to sign an anti-prostitution pledge despite concerns over its constitutionality. The pledge required all organizations receiving USAID money overseas to renounce prostitution, which some groups interpreted as abandoning efforts to prevent prostitutes from spreading AIDS.

The Brazilian government, which has had success in decreasing AIDS by working with prostitutes, refused to sign the pledge and lost a $40 million grant.

That’s just a taste. Here’s another:

The administration had hoped to avoid fights with religious conservatives by putting people in charge of USAID with strong faith-based ties: administrator Andrew Natsios and global health director Dr. Anne Peterson .

Natsios is a former Massachusetts legislator who once supervised the Big Dig and has served as vice president of World Vision, the largest evangelical recipient of USAID grants. Peterson, a physician, is an evangelical Christian and former Virginia state health commissioner who has also worked with Christian groups in Africa.

[snip]

In September 2004, Peterson boarded a plane for Colorado on a secret and sensitive mission: to try to prevent an all-out assault by Dobson, who had vowed to use his clout with Congress to pressure USAID into giving more funds to faith-based groups.

Peterson spent the day at the Colorado Springs headquarters of Focus on the Family, culminating in a short, terse audience with Dobson himself.

“Where do you stand on condoms?” Dobson asked, according to Peterson.

Peterson replied that, as a physician, she was convinced condoms played an important role in preventing AIDS, along with abstinence and faithfulness. Dobson was displeased, she said.

[snip]

Within months, Peterson had resigned for personal reasons, deeply bruised by the attacks.

Do go and read the whole piece.

I’ve gotta say, the left’s portrayal of Bush’s AIDS initiatives as corrupt money scams for abstinence-only programs has been one of most unfair and ignorant portrayals going around.

If Obama far exceeded all your expectations in regard to how heavily he supported AIDS programs in Africa, it probably still wouldn’t even measure up to what Bush has done. Yet because a sterotype of Christian Republicans is easier for stupid bloggers to use in a snarky dismissal of any mention of it, you literally cannot find any liberal who’s aware of this.

For all the bitching about Fox news we see on blogs, they sure have taken the formula and made it their own, to the intellectual detriment of their readers.