Pro Bono
BARNES, FRED
Pro Bono The president and the singer make common cause on Africa. BY FRED BARNES THE QUESTION asked of the president by a British reporter sounded like a setup, aimed at getting Bush to dismiss...
...Bono dedicated a song to Gerson, who had never been to a rock concert before...
...I remember when I first talked to Condi [Rice], when I was trying to convince her to become the national security adviser, she said, 'Are you going to pay attention to the continent of Africa?' I said, 'You bet.'" Indeed, American aid has nearly tripled...
...Bono is a Catholic...
...And i admire his leadership on the issue...
...on top of that, the president took exception to the reporter's condescending reference to rock stars...
...It would cover 18 countries, most of them in Africa...
...He visited Africa in 2003, stopping in Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, and Nigeria...
...It was loud," Gerson says...
...He's morally focused...
...He's an impressive guy," Gerson says...
...Eradicating poverty in Africa is at the top of the summit's agenda...
...Bono has been taken aback by attacks on him for working with the president...
...Africa is an important part of my foreign policy...
...Bono, a champion of debt relief, liked the Bush approach...
...The second, in 2003, involved only Bush, Bono, and Con-doleezza Rice, Bush's then national security adviser...
...That's because he began paying serious attention to Africa and other poor countries in his first term...
...Bono and Michael Gerson, the president's counselor and speechwriter, have also struck up a friendship...
...But Bono, in his view, wasn't one of them...
...i can't remember how you characterized the rock stars," he said, "but I don't characterize them that way, having met the man...
...The concentration on Africa is not Bush's compassionate conservative agenda for his second term...
...Today, the ratio has changed, from mostly loans to about 45 percent grants...
...The trip is remembered mostly for the passionate speech he gave on Goree Island in Senegal, once the departure point for slaves going to America...
...But the Millennium Challenge Fund, which finances development projects in poor countries that are democratic and agree to encourage economic freedom, is not up to speed...
...At the press conference Bush declared, "We've tripled aid to Africa," repeating what he'd said in his opening statement...
...The program, now expected to cost $16 billion, was developed by Gerson and budget director Josh Bolten and supported by Rice...
...He sent a note of thanks to the White House after the president stuck up for him at the press conference...
...He found that what's known at the White House as PEPFAR—the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief—is working well, with funds arriving ahead of schedule...
...He is a man of depth and a great heart who cares deeply about the impoverished folks on the continent of Africa...
...The pressure worked...
...The Bush-Bono relationship symbolizes the administration's emphasis on aiding sub-Saharan Africa...
...To reach agreement, Bush officials had to beat back a series of proposals by Gordon Brown, the British finance minister...
...And we'll do more down the road," he said...
...Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted...
...They lunched together in Philadelphia in May, and Gerson and Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...i admire him...
...His view, an aide says, was that loans leave poor countries "endlessly and hopelessly in debt...
...Bush's first major effort to help impoverished countries, particularly in Africa, came in 2001 when he began pressuring international financial institutions to provide more grants than loans...
...Several days earlier, Bono ate dinner at Bolten's house along with the Roves and the Gersons...
...The first meeting, in 2002, was joined by several White House aides and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Catholic leader in Washington...
...But especially in Bono's case, "it's nice to have allies...
...Gerson says Bush didn't need to be pushed by Bono or anyone else to focus on Africa...
...Part of this world," he said, "we got a lot of big talkers...
...In press accounts, Blair got most of the credit, but the program was actually crafted over two years by the Bush administration...
...It's fair to say the president views this as a major foreign policy focus," a senior Bush aide says...
...A few days after the Bush-Blair news conference, the United States and Britain agreed to a $40 billion debt relief program through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and African Development Bank...
...Bono has come to see me," he said...
...And, at first, Bush seemed to take the bait...
...He announced a plan to spend $15 billion over five years "to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean...
...In 2002, Bush established the Millennium Challenge Fund...
...When they presented it to Bush, he was receptive...
...BY FRED BARNES THE QUESTION asked of the president by a British reporter sounded like a setup, aimed at getting Bush to dismiss Bono and reject the U2 singer's pleas for aid to poor, debt-laden countries as mere "rhetoric from rock stars...
...He's knowledgeable...
...The program dwarfs the efforts of the Clinton administration, which spent $225 million on global AIDS relief in 1999...
...White House officials said he will announce new programs to help Africa before the G8 summit in July in Scotland...
...So much so that Gerson spent nine days in early June in Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa to investigate the effectiveness of the Bush effort...
...His only qualm was whether it would work...
...The United States provided more than $3.2 billion in official development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa in 2004...
...He's also willing to praise the president when he does good things...
...And Bush added another $674 in emergency aid in June...
...The spirit of Africans in America did not break," he said then...
...These included selling gold reserves or bonds to pay off some of the $40 billion plan...
...At the press conference where he defended Bono, Bush seemed irritated that he's gotten so little credit for this...
...Then in his State of the Union address in 2003, the president produced a surprise...
...Bush has twice invited Bono to the Oval Office to discuss Africa...
...But he hasn't backed off...
...his wife Dawn attended the U2 concert there that evening...
...At the Q and A session, he was joined by British prime minister Tony Blair...
Vol. 10 • June 2005 • No. 39
