How the liberal media treated a Bush daughter

About a year ago, I blogged about first daughter's new book on AIDS. Here's what liberals thought of her effort.

Jenna Bush's book for young people

Jenna Bush has authored a book "Ana's Story; a Journey of Hope" (HarperCollins, 2007, 209 pp. $18.99). It is non-fiction, for teenagers and about AIDS, is based on 6 months of conversations with women and children with HIV or AIDS when the president's daughter was working with UNICEF. It was reviewed, probably reluctantly, by Bob Minzesheimer in USAToday. In general, he was positive, pointing out it was easy to read with 35 pages of sources addressing common myths about AIDS and HIV. The paper edition differed from the online version. In paper he wrote that it doesn't address how much U.S. support should go to organizations that distribute condoms as opposed to religious groups that promote only abstinence. How picky is that? Reviewers and talking heads always want the book they themselves didn't make the effort to write and publish. I wonder if Minzesheimer would board an airplane that had the same failure rate as condoms?

In another column this reviewer points out that when Oprah even mentions a title (Eat, pray, love; Middlesex) it leap frogs to the top of the best seller list. That won't happen to a book by a conservative, even if the topic is one of her favorites.

The commenters at the revised online article are the usual collection of Bush-haters and author-wannabees complaining about favoritism. They are well worth reading for their ignorance, pomposity and narrowmindedness, just in case you'd forgotten how green the left is. If even five young people read this book and decide that HIV is probably something in their future if they don't change their lifestyle, she will have achieved her goal.

Speaking of AIDS and abstinence, The invisible cure: Africa, the West and the fight against AIDS by Helen Epstein (Farrar Straus & Girous, 2007) reports on the Uganda campaign of "zero grazing," "love faithfully," and "sticking to one partner," later known as ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms). Uganda's decrease in HIV began in the late 1980s, and its approach became standard policy for the USAID and President Bush's PEPFAR. Uganda experienced an unprecedented decrease in HIV during the 1990s. The US policy experienced howls of protest and outrage because of its religious implications. However, "an increasing number of scientists have concluded that an ABC approach is supported by scientific evidence . . . 1) condom use hasn't been effective in epidemic areas (they are used inconsistantly and create more risk taking) and 2) number of partners and overlapping relationships is the key to increase or decrease in spreading sexual diseases. Epstein says multiple concurrent relationships create the "super highways of hyperepidemics," and casual sex constitutes the "on-ramps." The reviewer (JAMA, August 6, 2008, pp. 587-589) reports that Epstein challenges many sterotypes and myths about Africans.