A mission of mercy

A reminder: there are currently seven hunger-striking prisoners in Guantanamo being forcibly fed.

This morning Bush talked at the Leon Sullivan Foundation about his trip to Africa. “America,” he told the audience, “is on a mission of mercy.” A mission that has, evidently, conquered death itself: “You see it when you look into the eyes of an AIDS patient who has been brought back to life.” We’re just that good.


He mentioned that in the fight against malaria Benin has instituted “a national awareness day called ‘George W. Bush Day.’” Well, when you want to remind people of the dangers of annoying, disease-bearing insects...

In Rwanda, he visited the memorial center for the 1994 genocide. “I don’t know if our citizens understand this, but between 800,000 and a million people were murdered in a very short period of time.” I don’t know if our citizens understand that either, but it’s a safe bet George didn’t understand it until, oh, about a week ago.

He talked repeatedly during the speech about African children who are going to school for the first time, about the importance of education for bettering these countries’ economies, about the US providing textbooks, etc etc, but, you know, this is George Bush, so he didn’t see anything contradictory about letting his personal attitude towards schooling show by remarking about children in Ghana watching his motorcade, “I suspect they’re really happy I came -- they didn’t have to go to school...”