APPROPRIATE SKEPTICISM:

Bush AIDS Plan Surprises Many, but Advisers Call It Long Planned (SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and RICHARD W. STEVENSON, January 30, 2003, NY Times)

As one of the government's leading scientists, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci often visits the White House to talk about bioterrorism and vaccine research. But whenever he sees President Bush, Dr. Fauci said today, the president has the same question: "He says, `Tony, how's the AIDS program going?' "

That program, $15 billion over the next five years to fight global AIDS, caught many people by surprise when President Bush announced it Tuesday night. But while critics have long accused Mr. Bush of neglecting the epidemic, Dr. Fauci and other officials have been working on the initiative since June, they say, at Mr. Bush's explicit direction.

Mr. Bush's aides say the president has always been committed to the global AIDS cause, though not convinced that taxpayers' money could be well spent. But in recent months, a string of people from inside and outside the administration--including Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; and Bono, the Irish rock star--made a passionate case to persuade Mr. Bush that the time was right.

Among those most surprised by Mr. Bush's announcement were officials in 12 countries in Africa, which along with Haiti and Guyana will receive the money.

In the United States, the president's unexpected initiative has political ramifications, as well as humanitarian ones. With Republicans still smarting from racially charged remarks of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader, Mr. Bush's initiative may help mend fences with African-American leaders in Congress.

Today, they held a news conference to express what Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, called "new hope" and "some skepticism."

Mr. Conyers skepticism is well placed. There's not much of a constituency in the Republican Party for such a measure, there's no petro-benefit to be reaped in Africa (it can't all be about the oil there, can it?), and there's little prospect of blacks voting Republican any time in the near future. The only reason the President could have proposed this is because he actually believes in it and the only reason a Republican Congress would pass it is because they do to. They'd have to be acting because they think it's right, not because it's politically expedient. If such a thing happens then folks like Mr. Conyers will have to re-examine much of what they believe about George W. Bush and the Republican Party. If your opponents threatened to make the world shift under your feet you'd be skeptical too. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 30, 2003 2:29 PM