A lot of people from all sides of the political spectrum have pointed out Bob Geldof’s apparent apostasy, in which he praised George Bush, and said that when it came to aiding Africa, Bill Clinton did, errmmm…nothing. Actually he used a much cruder phrase than that, but this is a family blog. Follow the link, and you can read it yourself.

What I found surprising is that no one has pointed out the most egregious example of Clinton being all hat and no cattle when it comes to Africa. President Bush is being praised by Mr. Geldof for pledging fifteen million dollars to AIDS relief. Remember Bill Clinton’s trip to Africa in the spring of 1998, on which he took seemingly half of his administration, including Betty Currie (after pressuring her to perjure herself on his behalf)? The GAO estimated that it cost over forty million dollars.

Imagine how much more usefully that money could have been spent for Africans than on an African junket for his staff and photo ops for a man who was in the process of trying to distract the country from his intern and perjury problems. But apparently poor Mr. Geldof hasn’t learned that Mr. Clinton is above criticism, particularly when it comes to Africa–he is, after all, the first “black President.”

[Update at 8:15 PM PDT]

D’oh!!!!

A commenter points out that Bush pledged fifteen billion dollars, not fifteen million. Big deal–I was within three orders of magnitude.

My point still stands. Clinton was all show, and no go. Geldof was right.