THAT'S QUICK WIT?

We know that the standards by which the wit and wisdom of US Presidents are lower than for other people - that would be how Reagan's bumbling "there you go again" came to be mistaken for something other than a confused man flailing for some sort of response - but even so, we were a little disappointed by Bono's revelation of why he thinks Bush is 'quick-witted':

"He was more amusing than I expected... quick-witted. I got quickly to the point and the point was an unarguable one - that 6,500 people dying every day of a preventable and treatable disease would not be acceptable anywhere else other than Africa, and that before God and history this was a kind of racism that was unacceptable.

"He said, 'In fact, it's a kind of genocide.' "

(We're hoping at some point this week Bono will reveal what kinds of racism are acceptable, of course).

The trouble is, of course, that it's not really genocide, and to suggest it is would imply either Bush doesn't really understand the term or was just flailing around to say something to try and make himself seem clever. The point about a genocide is that it has to be planned and systematic; the pisspoor response to the mounting AIDS crisis has been, if anything, the exact opposite of a genocide - it's precisely the lack of planning and systematic response that has let the situation get so bad. It's terrible, it's wrong, it's a shame that we should all feel as a scar on our lives, yes; but genocide?

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