Mr. Bush, who made fighting AIDS in Africa a top goal of his administration, will take a trip there — his third since leaving office — as part of a program to combat cervical cancer. He will leave late next week for Zambia, where he will help refurbish a clinic, and then head to Tanzania, where his wife, Laura Bush, is organizing a forum for African first ladies.
Mr. Bush will overlap briefly on July 2 with Mr. Obama in Tanzania, the last stop on the current president’s itinerary after Senegal and South Africa. There are no plans for the two to see each other, but Michelle Obama has agreed to attend the first ladies’ forum with Mrs. Bush in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, to promote women’s education, health and economic empowerment.
One is nice, one is… not so nice.
- Character is what you do when people aren’t looking at you. Say what you like about George W Bush; but please do not pretend that he is not genuinely concerned about, and fighting against, poverty and disease in Africa. This was a hallmark of GWB’s administration from the beginning; he may have gotten no credit for it when he was in office, but I will be damned if Bush gets no credit for it now.
- Under the circumstances, it is perhaps unwise of Barack Obama to not make time to meet up with George W Bush, and perhaps bask a little in Bush’s reflected glory.
And you have absolutely no idea how much fun it was for me to type out that last sentence. Karma: it’s what’s for dinner.
Moe Lane