More Bush lies and hypocrisy -- this time on AIDS in Africa:

TOMPAINE.com - The Loyal Opposition: So This Is The Thanks Bono Gets? The President expects his project to prevent nearly 150,000 infant infections over the next five years. The problem is, there are about 800,000 children born with AIDS each year, according to the UN. That means the Bush initiative is aiming at helping less than 4 percent of this population. Moreover, $200 million dollars of this supposedly "new" initiative were approved for use this year by Congress days before Bush's announcement. What he added was $300 million for this type of AIDS prevention in the following two years. Which averages out to $150 million a year -- a cut from the current level. It gets worse. At the start of June, several Republicans -- notably, Sens. Bill Frist and Jesse Helms -- were trying to raise overseas AIDS funding this year by $500 million. But the White House leaned on Frist and Helms and got the pair to slice that to $200 million.

The bottom line? When Bush hailed his initiative as one that would save lives, he could have as easily said, thanks to me, this program will save fewer lives than it would have had Frist and Helms gotten their way. As Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat who has worked with Frist and Helms to increase global AIDS funding, griped, "Just as we've achieved bipartisan momentum to make a real difference on the toll this devastating disease is taking on Africa, the administration announces a retreat and pretends it's a forward charge."