First!

How much of the African "Aid" money has actually been spent on weapons and not people? Bono praises him? Must have been a slow "save the world" week for Bono.

Maybe Bush can go live in Africa. They can have him.

He had to go all the way over there on our dime to give them mosquito nets? Couldn't he have sent the money and the nets via UPS? He's running out of countries that will welcome him. Plus they need pictures for his soon to be built library where people are actually smiling at him.

Bush, a closet good guy!!???? Helping in Africa without a quid pro quo!!!??? Just doin a little honest brokering for a change!!????

I ahhh ummmm ya know folks.... I jussst ain't buyin it... I don't know what the angle is....but as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west... I KNOW, there's an angle he's workin... Might be Dick Cheney's angle but George is workin it...What kind of extradition treaties are in place between the various nations of the African continent and Europe and America???...

Maybe he's just setting up the post presidential non extraditable retirement gig for himself and Uncle shotgun......Jus sayin.. If a duck behaves like a duck.. He ain't going to suddenly wake up and act like an owl.... Especially for no reason.................JD

Wasn't there the 'faith based abstinence only' restriction?

Not to mention, promising and actually delivering are two things.

Bono was just happy to get anyone to fork over some money.

So is the Bush Administration pushing the 'safe sex=no sex' meme there like they do here? I don't care how much money they are giving, an abstinence only program will do nothing but harm.

If they are actually teaching and promoting use of condoms, then good, I'll give him the due respect.

Wow! Maybe all the AIDS organizations in the U.S. should move to Africa to get the funding that bush is cutting over here. Not one AIDS/HIV agency here has gotten any new funding since 2001.

Polls: Obama pulls ahead of Clinton in Texas. Within 3 in Ohio. Kos has it here:

http://dailykos.com/

When Bush admantly stated in a speech over there (or press conference) that his motives had nothing to do with military forces eventually being moved there I immediately knew that there were ulterior motives to this largesse. And its highly likely it is just for that reason he is trying to do this, even more likely its an attempt (pathetic in so many ways) at legacy building

He is not operated as a force for good anywhere in the world.

Fidelity Investments bans Dailykos prohibiting its employees from accessing the site. Wingnut sites accessible though.

Will C&L be next?

You know, GOD bless John Stewart, and Colbert, etc... I love o laugh like anyone... HOWEVER, it has been years now that we have been "laughing" at how this administration has been dragging this nation down, and to be quite honest with you, I AM TIRED OF LAUGHING AT IT ALL... I WANT ACTION! I really don't think that it is too funny to have a leader who has the mental capacity of a gerbil who is quite literally destroying my sons future here in the states and SUFFERING NO CONSEQUENCES FOR HIS ACTIONS! You want to make me laugh? GOOSE-STEP GWB AND CHENEY OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE!

Having done without the Daily Show for a while due to the writers strike (Stewart tried but it didn't have the zaz wihtout them) I wonder if perhaps I've been overly impressed with the show in the past.
It's good that the Daily Show switches gears and pokes at conventional wisdom and knocks the Dems when they deserve it and it;s not their fault that the Republican;s and Bush have been such a rich vein for not just parody but pointed satire, but this skit is a poor effort all around---at least on its own.

The figures Bush has publicly claimed in his aid to Africa he has then consistently reduced in private and his AIDS reduction programs have demonstrably failed because of the rejection of sex/health education in favor of an abstinence dogma as a requirement for funds. AIDS throughout Africa has increased under his policies, whereas before it had been dmeonstrably reduced---so this skit would have been funny if Bush actually HAD been doing some good for once, but he hasn't.
The aphorism "it's funny because it's true" deosn't apply in this instance. It's not true that Bush is doing any good
ergo it's not funny.
So

Kahoneez @ 16:

OLIVER: Well, it’s just [stammers] What’s his angle? He’s not running for reelection. There’s no ulterior military objective. He’s got no chance of becoming King of Africa. What the HELL is going on?

Actually there IS an " ulterior motive " so the premise of his joke in wrong and misleading , because there is a huge increase of U.S. military in Africa and just because the U.S. infotainment cabal doesn't report it , doesn't mean it's not happening, i.e. the U.S. controlled attack on Somalia , by Ethiopia , censored by the U.S. press . Only at the Independent will you find out U.S. gunships are doing attacks inside Somalia, when have you hear Blitzer mention THAT ? He hasn't That's why I believe there is deliberate collusion between the major networks and the U.S. government , to keep certain stories off the screen or deliberately down playing them to the point where it doesn't exist.

The bumbling president is easy to chuckle about and looks as if he'll be riding off into the sunset as the goofy dunce , just deeeen't naw what he wus doin ...when he was obviously connected to a large network or cabal , that wished for and GOT" we need a new pearl harbor" , written on the PNAC site and PROFITED from the invasion , from Haliburton to JP MORGAN , the guys that really are pulling the strings , profiting from the occupation of Iraq and this ah shucks he's just an idiot nonsense , will ensure more misery and death in the future , because these criminals are NOT HELD RESPONSIBLE .

The people in Africa do not want the U.S. militarization of Africa , via AFRICOM the bush administration call for a single U.S. headquarters on the continent of Africa , to entail the training of thousands of African soldiers , under the control of the U.S. military .
http://www.africaaction.org however the complicit INFOTAINERS not only won't report the iSRAELI killing of Palestinians in GAZA, over 20 killed , BY Israeli AIR STRIKES including 5 CHILDREN , AND THAT VILE WOLF BLITZER SAID NOT ONE WORD , NOT ONE WORD , and they are covering up the huge incursion of U.S. military , building strips , poring money to any dictator or General that's willing to play ball and allow U.S. occupation .

Even if you buy this Imperialism under the cloak of cleverly chosen words from their propaganda machine , " helping stability " " rooting out Al qaeda " " helping with medical needs " ..yes, the responsibility for AID , Medical etc. is being shifted to the PENTAGON , you better find out why they hate us .

Africans know , THEY KNOW the U.S. military is in Africa for things they have even admitted to " resources " and it's not just OIL, oil routes that are around the coast of Somalia and future oil reserves , resources like COBALT for your damn cellphone . You want another continent to hate us , you got it .

Looks like the Daily Show show will frame this president as just the bumbling chuckle head , who only made some silly mistakes, which will allow him to escape justice by the court of law for the reign of terror he unleashed on the world .

People forget this stuff. Especially when it isn't mentioned in the media at all.

Bush always has a motive. The Don, Richard B. Cheney never does work for free.

Next to Antarctica, Africa is the last untapped resource rich continent on the planet.

A builder always lays a strong foundation just as the criminal mind greases a wheel with cash.

Our tax dollars at work albeit, for the greatest of humanitarian causes, to win favor for the Bush Crime Syndicate.

STEWART: Maybe he’s just trying to do something good in a difficult part of the world.

OLIVER: No! No! That makes it worse! Over the past seven excruciating years I’ve come to terms with the President being incompetent. The fact that we now know that he’s capable of doing good all along and has simply chosen not to, that really burns!

There's teh money statement right there!

Pawn @ 2:

The prez just wants to open up Africa to the military. Spending money makes it easier for African nations to say yes.

Yep. PNAC's little Africom

allbrothers @ 34:

The man is a human being.

Where have you been for the last seven years?

Maybe bush is keeping his options open when it comes to flee countries. He has Paraguay but maybe he would get bored with that place and want to spend some time in another country that isn't a member of the ICC and has no criminal extradition policy with the US. Say Africa, maybe.

Why don't they just "Say no", to the bugs, and not use protection?

Actually, I think it IS fair to say that the ONE thing Dumbya has done has been to begin a more aggressive approach to addressing HIV/AIDS. However, there ARE many problems with this.

First, his "PEPFAR" program was a direct fuck you to the UN, John Bolton style, that disrupted and disabled the extant Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria. The US could have supported that program directly.

PEPFAR is limited to a few African and a couple of non-African nations. It demands that recipients sign on a Gag Rule of not working with Sex Workers. A significant proportion is spent on Abstinence Only approaches which have repeatedly been shown to be a dismal failure (and partly explains Uganda's abrupt slide from reductions in new infections). It supports psychotic fundamentalist religious organizations.

Second, PEPFAR has largely served, a la "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," as a Slush fund for big Pharma. It set up the FDA as an arbiter of the safety and equivalence of generically manufactered antiretrovirals (ARVs) (despite the UN already having such a program). Suddenly, FDA is arbiter to the planet of who can get what?

Now, to FDA's credit, they have approved a number of generic ARVs that are MUCH cheaper than the genocidally-priced Pharma Meds. But does PEPFAR use them? Almost not at all. So literally MILLIONS more people do not get treatment as budgeted programs have to shovel all the money back into pharma's hands to pay for their exorbitant, killing costs. (Doesn't this sound imperialistically familiar?)

First line ARVs, in addition, are pretty much all that most people get. They're generally more toxic. There aren't enough T cell counting or viral load assessing machines. Second line drugs aren't available when resistance develops to the second line--again--Pharma has a lock and Bush/Cheney of course believe that patents and profits trump human life.

So Bush has indeed done some wee bit of good...but not NEARLY enough. And the piddling amounts that he has offered (and reneged on or tried to get less delivered) pale in comparison to his lust for war, death and power. The result is that the infrastructure needs for health care, the nurses, physicians, equipment, clinics, rural outreach, family planning and so forth, are still in dismal straits in most places. And the pandemic continues to kill.

Spending a few billions of dollars through global initiatives could do an ENORMOUS amount of good. But it will take getting rid of Bush to see that we at least asymptotically approach such a worthy goal--though the big corporations will fight tooth and nail any whiff of a plan that will impinge upon their profits, golden parachutes, and the usual shit that keeps huge numbers living in poverty, squalor, hunger and at risk for preventable, treatable diseases and death.

According to Stieglitz's last book, The Three Trillion War, the annual aid to Africa (5bn) is about ten days of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So much about generosity!

MountainMan23 @ 30:

President's David Brent-style gyrations take US-Liberian relations to a whole new level during a visit to Monrovia

Video (Guardian UK): Bush dances his way into Liberian hearts

Thanks for the link.

Hilarious how a Secret Service guy has to show Prez. Fuckwit how to take his jacket off!!

Bushbaby?