FOXNews.com - The O'Reilly Factor - Interview - Bono: Not Facing AIDS Crisis 'Foolhardy'
Bono is at the Republican convention and sat in for an interview with Bill O'Reilly on FOX last night. Talk about up my alley!
Notice that O'Reilly refers to our former Senator as "the late" Jesse Helms. I hope he means late for the convention, because as far as I know Jesse is still very much alive. Strange that the slip would even make it into the transcript. Jesse Helms is still alive, right? Besides that, it was a great interview, read the transcript on the link above. Here's a couple of exerpts:
O'REILLY: Let me ask you a couple of questions. I understand the late Jesse Helms, the arch conservative, the late Jesse Helms of North Carolina was a very big booster of your cause, is that correct?
BONO: Yes. It's been amazing. I've been really surprised. You know, I came at this from -- you know, I grew up in a Labour household, you can imagine in the north side of Dublin. I have all my opinions. I have my opinions of conservatives, and they weren't all good. And then I met some conservatives that really turned me around on that. They were really just conservatives. They were people that will had their convictions that were different to mine, but they held them, you know, from a true place.
Then I met Jesse Helms, who you know, who people in my band wouldn't speak to me because I was meeting Jesse Helms. And he did an extraordinary thing. He did something no politician does. He publicly apologized for the way he had thought about the AIDS virus. He says, I've got it wrong. And he got emotional about it, and he turned it around. And he made a lot of other people who were very judgmental about AIDS...
O'REILLY: Look at it in a different way.
BONO: ... look at it in a different way.
O'REILLY: I've been to Africa as you. I'm not as widely traveled as you, but it is a corrupt continent, it's a continent in chaos. We can't deliver a lot of the systems that we send there. Money is stolen.
Now, when you have a situation like that, where governments don't really perform consistently, where there's just corruption everywhere, how can you cut through that?
BONO: It's funny, we worked with this administration on two things. Historic AIDS initiative, and a thing called the Millennium Challenge, which is a way of increasing aide flows to Africa, but only to countries that are tackling corruption. So really important, and not well described initiative.
O'REILLY: So like Uganda, which is really trying to do something, the money would flow there.
BONO: Yes.
O'REILLY: But in Sierra Leone, wouldn't go there.
BONO: Exactly.
O'REILLY: OK. I like that. Because that, at least, gives you a chance.....
O'REILLY: I like it, and I think it can be done. You're going to have to work hard to get it done. Is that a rosary around your neck there? Is that a rosary?
BONO: The pope gave me this, it's a Michelangelo designed....
O'REILLY: You're certainly doing God's work. I mean, I admire you very much for what you're doing.
BONO: God must have a great sense of humor to have me on board.
O'REILLY: No. No. We need people like you to command a worldwide audience and to get people at least thinking about this. And then we need the politicians out here in the convention, in both conventions to come up with a strategy. I do agree that if America could take the lead, it would turn public opinion around and help us in the war on terror.
Note my title "Bono O'Reilly" is a take-off on the Who song "Baba O'Riley", look at the lyrics from that song:
Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven
Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland
Sally, take my hand
Travel south cross land
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, yeah
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!