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Sunday 
17 October 2004
cheney discovers aids
vice president dick cheney is not too concerned about aids victims. he doesn’t care about their pain, suffering and untimely demise. what chokes him up, aids-wise, is the money. damn, aids costs a lot.
you don’t have to take my word for it. with the help of our handy tfloss translator, you can sample cheney’s response during the vice president wanna-be debate…
IFILL: I will talk to you about health care, Mr. Vice President. You have two minutes. But in particular, I want to talk to you about AIDS, and not about AIDS in China or Africa, but AIDS right here in this country, where black women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 13 times more likely to die of the disease than their counterparts.
What should the government’s role be in helping to end the growth of this epidemic?
CHENEY: Well, this is a great tragedy, Gwen, when you think about the enormous cost here in the united states and around the world of the AIDS epidemic — pandemic, really. Millions of lives lost, millions more infected and facing a very bleak future.
tfloss translator: yes, i’ve heard of aids. i understand it’s making lots of people sick. bummer for them.
CHENEY: In some parts of the world, we’ve got the entire, sort of, productive generation has been eliminated as a result of aids, all except for old folks and kids — nobody to do the basic work that runs an economy.
tfloss translator: from what i’m told, there are parts of the world where lots of people have died of, what did you call it? aids? yes, and in those countries apparently we can’t make any money at all.
CHENEY: The president has been deeply concerned about it. He has moved and proposed and gotten through the congress authorization for $15 billion to help in the international effort, to be targeted in those places where we need to do everything we can, through a combination of education as well as providing the kinds of medicines that will help people control the infection.
tfloss translator: the president knows less about this than i do, and he doesn’t give a shit either. but apparently some of our friends in the pharmaceutical industry are getting rich off this whatever-you-called-it.
CHENEY: Here in the United States, we’ve made significant progress. I have not heard those numbers with respect to African-American women. I was not aware that it was — that they’re in epidemic there, because we have made progress in terms of the overall rate of AIDS infection, and I think primarily through a combination of education and public awareness as well as the development, as a result of research, of drugs that allow people to live longer lives even though they are infected — obviously we need to do more of that.
tfloss translator: we have aids in this country? well, maybe you people have it…none of my friends do. and if they did, we’d hook ‘em up with some of our friends in the pharmaceutical industry and get ‘em cured, right quick. next question.
