Kai Wright on the increasing rate of AIDS among black people in the south:
Meanwhile, an AIDS apartheid has hardened here. John Edwards' two Americas are perhaps most clearly witnessed in the waiting rooms of AIDS clinics around the country. African Americans, who are 13 percent of the U.S. population, now account for a stunning half of all people living with HIV/AIDS and half of all those newly infected every year. The numbers are even more shocking when you look at the people among whom the virus is spreading most quickly. One depressing study of gay and bisexual men in five large U.S. cities found 46 percent of black men to already be positive. Nearly half. No population on Earth has registered infection rates that high.
Andrew Green reports that the U.S. lacks a national AIDS strategy despite the fact that we require one from all other countries that receive funding from us to fight the disease:
Before the United States will consider giving AIDS funding to another country, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief requires the foreign government to create and implement a national AIDS strategy. "At the core of the implementation strategy," the requirements explain, "is a robust ongoing in-country planning effort" meant to "identify relevant U.S. government agencies, existing resources, needs, gaps, partners, programs, objectives, performance measures, staffing, and technical assistance requirements."
And Paul Waldman writes that although Obama gets some good press, the media slavishly follows any storyline from McCain's campaign:
"Sure, reporters have a soft spot for John McCain. But they've been pretty kind to Barack Obama, too. So what's going to happen now that two politicians they like are running against each other?" As I've been out promoting the book I co-wrote about McCain and the media, I've been asked some version of this question dozens of times. The premise is partly true, in that Obama has enjoyed some periods of positive coverage over the course of this campaign, but there was never any comparison between Washington reporters' feelings for the two presidential contenders. What happened last week with Gen. Wesley Clark made that all too clear, as do some emerging narratives that are moving right from the McCain campaign's mouth to reporters' pens.
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--The Editors
