Author: Andrew Sullivan

We’re in the middle of a propaganda blitz designed to persuade people that Ronald Reagan deliberately foisted HIV onto the population of the United States, by a mixture of negligence and malevolence. The publicity surrounding Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” will center on depicting closeted McCarthyite Roy Cohn as the true soul of modern conservatism. (I wonder why they don’t cite uncloseted McCarthyite Bobby Kennedy, but never mind.) Meanwhile, the myth that there was somehow a magic wand in the early 1980s to cure AIDS – a wand that Reagan deliberately refused to wave – is now almost conventional wisdom. Into this blizzard of misinformation, Deroy Murdock provides some truly important evidence. Reagan could have done more. He shouldn’t be left off the hook. But he shouldn’t be subjected to disinformation either. Meanwhile, as Natalie Solent points out, the real threat to containing and treating HIV has come from widespread efforts from the left to persecute the pharmaceutical companies. Her money quote:

Why the decline [in HIV research]? Because the drugs companies no longer believe that they are going to get rich out of AIDS research. In fact they begin to doubt they will get any compensation at all. They read the newspapers, they study the speeches of politicians, and they sense that the popular wind is blowing against them. They think, probably rightly, that governments will either force them to sell at a loss drugs that were developed at huge expense or will bypass them and the law entirely by buying generic copies of patent drugs. Governments, after all, are the ones who can change the law when it is inconvenient. One minute the authorities will come down like a ton of bricks on pirate music or pirate videos. The next minute they will say that it is ‘unacceptable greed’ for companies to actually want to profit from patents on medical discoveries. I accept that there are subtleties and genuine conflicts of principle in the field of intellectual property – but the bottom line is that if pharma companies get nothing but abuse for the work they put in they bloody well won’t put in much more of it. Just as for the slaves, it’s no surprise that if people are forced to work for nothing then they don’t bust a gut.

Tuesday night, at Colgate University, the one point I made that truly shocked the audience was a defense of the drug companies. It has been imprinted on an entire generation that Big Pharma is the source of all evil. But the only reason I’m writing this blog at all is because of Big Pharma. They’re not angels in America. They’re capitalists. But the profit motive has been the most progressive force in pioneering specific medical breakthroughs that we have yet found. Why cannot the left see this? Why are they – more than Ronald Reagan – pursuing policies that will consign many people with HIV to earlier deaths? And why do so few people call them on it?

On the 70th anniversary of the end of prohibition, Radley Balko worries about the new war on social drinking.

POSEUR ALERT: “One of the reasons I live here is that I really feel like New York needs me right now. New York is not the center for American culture and art that it once was because of the forces of conservatism. Giuliani, capitalism – and then there was 9/11. I really believe that if I leave, it will suffer! Maybe that’s why I love it here, because I feel wanted.” – singer Rufus Wainwright, The Observer, October 12. I love Wainwright’s music. Pity he can say idiotic things like this.

BLOGS AND TRENT LOTT: On almost the one-year anniversary of Lott’s Senatorial leadership demise, a scholarly study of the role of blogs.

HMMMM: Here’s an interesting question. This is a quote from John Le Carre’s new novel, in which the United States assumes the role of the old Soviet Union as a menace in world affairs:

“Tell the new zealots of Washington that in the making of Israel a monstrous human crime was committed and they will call you an anti-Semite.”

You know what? Calling the creation of Israel a “monstrous human crime” and leaving it at that is, to my mind, the statement of an anti-Semite. Opposing Israel’s existence is one thing. Criticizing it is one thing. But calling this attempt to find a refuge for a people just murdered in the millions “a monstrous human crime” is simply so extreme that I have to wonder where the sentiment is coming from.

Over to you, Michael Moore.

Christmas trees are apparently too controversial for one campus. So one has been removed, Josh Claybourne reports.

NO SHOW: The Bush military funeral canard – fisked.

I’m on the road so forgive me for not elaborating further on Dean’s “Soviet Union” gaffe. No, it’s not the end of the world. But it’s hard to come down hard on the president’s linguistic difficulties while ignoring Dean’s. But what is serious is that Dean seems to think that we can prevent proliferation by buying the stuff from North Korea, Russia, or whoever. But what’s to stop rogue nuke states selling to Iran and to us? Is Dean that naive? And isn’t it true that the real source of Iran’s nuclear material has recently been Pakistan anyway? My bottom line: I don’t care if a presidential candidate commits a gaffe in foreign policy. I do care that his instinct is to buy off enemies, rather than confront them; and that he’s not on the ball about where the real threats are coming from. Dean is making me more nervous about his foreign policy ideas, not less. Hillary is far smarter (if predictably slimy).

A French cartoonist hits another low point in Yankenfreude.

FIRING LINGUISTS: Some thirty-seven linguists – many of them fluent in Arabic – have been thrown out of the military during the war on terror because they’re gay. Way to go, guys!

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Am I saying that critics of the war aren’t patriotic? Not at all – I’m a critic of some aspects of the war. What I’m saying is that those who try to paint the bleakest, most anti-American, and most anti-Bush picture of the war, whose purpose is not criticism but deception in order to gain temporary political advantage, those people are indeed not patriotic. They have placed their own or their party’s political gain ahead of the national struggle to destroy the power base of the terrorists who attacked Americans abroad and on American soil.” – sci-fi writer, Orson Scott Card.

“Suddenly everyone stood – began to applaud – to cheer – and to smile. The children waved. In a box to the right – smiling and applauding the audience – as well as the artists on the stage – stood the great Stalin. I remember the tears began to quietly flow. and I too smiled and waved. Here was clearly a man who seemed to embrace all. So kindly – I can never forget that warm feeling of kindliness and also a feeling of sureness. Here was one who was wise and good – the world and especially the socialist world was fortunate indeed to have his daily guidance. I lifted high my son Pauli to wave to this world leader, and his leader. For Paul, Jr. had entered school in Moscow, in the land of the Soviets… In all spheres of modern life the influence of Stalin reaches wide and deep. From his last simply written but vastly discerning and comprehensive document, back through the years, his contributions to the science of our world society remain invaluable. One reverently speaks of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin – the shapers of humanity’s richest present and future.
Yes, through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage. Most importantly – he has charted the direction of our present and future struggles. He has pointed the way to peace – to friendly co-existence – to the exchange of mutual scientific and cultural contributions – to the end of war and destruction. How consistently, how patiently, he labored for peace and ever increasing abundance, with what deep kindliness and wisdom. He leaves tens of millions all over the earth bowed in heart-aching grief.
But, as he well knew, the struggle continues. So, inspired by his noble example, let us lift our heads slowly but proudly high and march forward in the fight for peace – for a rich and rewarding life for all.” – Paul Robeson, eulogizing one of the worst mass murderers in human history. Would anyone who had written such things about Hitler in 1945 now be celebrated on a postage stamp?

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “At the beginning of the book, he (Yeats) has married “George” Hyde Lees and is receiving supernatural messages through her trance-like writing. These stem from a group known as the Instructors, who inform the poet that the child with whom his wife is pregnant will be the Avatar whom the world needs for its salvation. (The son in question is still alive, but so far has shown no signs of any plan to assassinate Bush).” – Terry Eagleton, The Nation, December 8.

Should we be that surprised that the Alliance for Marriage, the anti-gay group organizing to pass the FMA, has joined forces with a terror-supporting Islamic group? I wish I could be surprised.

Did the former president really say that his goal in the Middle East was to reach “a final solution”? No wonder Arafat liked him.

Here’s a quote of his from Hardball:

Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons.

The Soviet Union?? Not just once but three times? If Dubya had said this, all hell would have broken loose. It’s an astonishing lapse – and the incoherent grammar only adds to the impression of rank amateurism. Yes, I know Dean means Russia. But anyone who cannot distinguish between Russia and the Soviet Union has no business running for president of the United States.