As I said earlier, I love this guy, Bono I mean, not Bill O’Reilly (not that I dislike him). I am also very proud of Bono. When Bono spoke at the Liberal leadership convention he said “I am not a supporter of the Liberal Party, I am not a support of any party…but I do like to party.” When I saw him at the Democratic National Convention (on the TV, like you thought I was there) I began to have my doubts. But there he was last night at the Republican National Convention, spreading his message, continuing the fight against AIDS in Africa. I wish Bill O’Reilly had gotten out the way at times though. Yes, Mr. O’Reilly, you are smart, but can you let your guest speak. Here are some highlights.
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: … What most people don't know is that Bono has worked with both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. He joins us now. So are you a non-partisan guy?
BONO: I'm a non-partisan guy.
O’REILLY: You don't root?
BONO: I don't root anymore. Yes, I’ve stopped rooting. I'm rooting for people that don't have a vote and for people whose faces we don't see...
O’REILLY: ...Africa is your cause. That is what you are front and center on, correct? Africa?
BONO: Yes. I wouldn't call it a cause, though.
O'REILLY: Well, whatever you want to say.
BONO: It's an emergency. 69,000 Africans dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease...
O'REILLY: Let's talk about AIDS, because this is a very controversial topic within the United States itself. Now, we've got the epidemic under control here, primarily by education and frightening people into safe sex and all of that. In Africa, the education is almost nil. And that there's a tradition of men, as you know, not having sex protected, because of some kind of macho thing involved in it.
Now, Americans are going to say, I don't want my tax dollars going over to a civilization or a society that no matter what you tell them, they're going to continue to do disruptive practices. How do you answer that?
BONO: Look, if you see a car crash, somebody's lying there in the middle of the road bleeding and it turns out they're a drunk driver, you're still going to call an ambulance. We can't make these judgments about entire civilizations. We try to re-educate people, we try to deal with the problem.
And by the way, not dealing with the problem with something like AIDS, which metastasized, which grows on a geometric level, is really foolhardy. Because it will be more expensive to deal with it later.
O'REILLY: Look, you can't force the truck drivers who are spreading AIDS all over Africa, because they visit the hookers and then they drive their truck from one to the other to the other. You can't force them to use condoms.
BONO: But we can't use of judgementalism, and we're not wrong in the statements you've made to excuse our inaction. That's not going to fly...
O'REILLY: We have to take action that's...
BONO: God is not going to accept that as an answer and history is not going to accept that as an answer.
BONO: ...when Europe was going through the Bubonic Plague and lost -- 1/3 of Europe died in the Middle Ages to the Black Death. Imagine, say, China had a treatment for the Black Death and hadn't because it was difficult or expensive. What would we think of China now?
BONO: ...Two things happened on 9/11. There was -- the one that's reported, of course, is the attack on America. But the one that has not been reported, and reported with less disgust, is what happened in the aftermath, which was those pictures around the world of people jumping up and down, celebrating the Twin Towers turning to dust. One of the most disturbing -- they were the most disturbing images for me as a fan and a person who loves America.
A lot of people and this great country went; I don't care who you are, a politician, you stop that. How did this happen to us? How did this -- and this is the America that liberated Europe? Not just liberated Europe, we built Europe with the Marshall Plan which cost, by the way, 1 percent GDP over four years. That's when "Brand USA" was at its brightest.
Right now "Brand USA" has taken some blows and some knocks. And I'm saying there's an opportunity here. The Marshall Plan rebuilds Europe as a bulwark against Sovietism in the Cold War. It was smart. It wasn't just goodness of heart, which it also was. It was smart. And I'm saying in a hot war, here's a chance now to redescribe ourselves and be a bulwark against other militarism.
