Bono on Dubya and AIDS

From Michka Assayas' book of interviews with Bono [Amazon link] (via The Times Online), here are some insightful comments on how Bono and George W. Bush got on together when discussing how to help AIDS-ravaged Africa:

So you liked this man?

Yes. As a man, I believed him when he said he was moved to also do something about the Aids pandemic. I believed him. Listen, I couldn’t come from a more different place, politically, socially, geographically. I had to make a leap of faith to sit there. He didn’t have to have me there at all. But you don’t have to be harmonious on everything — just one thing — to get along with someone.
...
He was very funny and quick. Just quick-witted. With him, I got pretty quickly to the point, and the point was an unarguable one — that 6,500 people dying every day of a preventable and treatable disease [Aids] would not be acceptable anywhere else in the world other than Africa, and that before God and history this was a kind of racism that was unacceptable.

And he agreed: “Yeah, it’s unacceptable.” He said: “In fact, it’s a kind of genocide.”

The article has much more on Bono's thoughts on politicians and celebrities.

(Hat tip: pressing on in the dark)

Link to Traffic Jam on Outside the Beltway.