On a recent New Hampshire campaign swing, Huckabee said that he would support the Bush administration's proposal to double funding for AIDS but said that he didn't want to shortchange other diseases that kill more people.
"I want to make sure that when we look at a disease, whether it is AIDS, diabetes, or cancer, we look at it from the macro perspective, and we don't just single out one thing that affects, in America, you know, about 5,000 people a year," Huckabee said.
Where does the idiocy come into play?
The Centers for Disease Control reported that there were 42,514 new AIDS cases and 13,064 deaths from the disease in 2004, the most recent year for which it provided data. About 1.5 million people in the United States have been infected with the AIDS virus since 1981, resulting in more than 500,000 deaths.He ought to know better than to open his mouth on an issue he clearly knows nothing about. More importantly, AIDS is a serious threat to not only this country, but the entire world. A President must have a working knowledge and understanding about HIV/AIDS. Earlier in the career, Huckabee specifically refers to AIDS a "plague," when he was trying to "isolate" gays and lesbians, now it's not a big deal? We need a President who understands HIV/AIDS, who's willing to take measures against it and who understands that this is far more than a gay person's disease. Clearly, he doesn't get any of that. Even more clearly, he can't be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.
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7 comments:
You're right. Since he doesn't know much about aids, he should not support doubling funding for it.
Honestly, yes.
Otherwise, how would he know if the funding he proposes doubling would be effective?
And we, as a population, have to decide if he's capable of making competitent decisions in that regard. For example, abstinence education without talking about contraceptives is less than useless and much more than a waste of whatever money is spent in it. However, if he wants to double the funding for programs like that, then you're right he shouldn't support it. More importantly we, as a population, shouldn't support a President who would do that.
Remember when he said he wanted to quarantine people with AIDS... and he didn't know about the NIH Iran report... and he wants to "return america to christ." YIKES!
His charm and leave it to beaver character can only get him so far. I say bring it on - let's face off with him instead of McCain.
If Huckabee said he didn't support doubling funding for aids, you'd have a post about how big a dick he is for not supporting doubling aids research funding. No doubt.
His comments about isolating gays was reasonable, if you look at it in terms of the initial spread of the disease. The movie "the band played on" showed how the disease was very concentrated early on and if health officials in this country had treated the disease in the same way as earlier deadly disease (quarantine etc.) we might not have the huge problem we have today.
joe, what aspects of the fight against aids do you think should get all this extra funding? would huckabee allocate the funds similarly?
Anon, he made that comment in 1992, well after we knew how HIV was transmitted. There was absolutely, positively no need for any isolation - his comments were pure homophobia and pandering to those who would support that viewpoint, or were afraid of what they didn't know.
Joe, maybe if he specifically said he didn't support funding for AIDS or something to that like, I would criticize him. However, as any astute candidate could tell you, if someone asks you something that's off message just don't answer it. If he didn't shove his foot in his mouth, then none of this would have been a problem. Thankfully, he did the whole foot-in-mouth thing, so now we know much more about him.
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