But it's empirically so

"Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American president for Africa. But it's empirically so."

Bob Geldof (not exactly a conservative!) spoke those words last month. The context:

In an interview broadcast in Britain on Monday, Mr. Bush said the U.S. would "absolutely" drop its system of farm subsidies if the European Union eliminated its $40 billion a year Common Agricultural Policy. Now, that's a radical idea. It certainly trumps the calls by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others to double official development aid to sub-Saharan Africa or to forgive more debt. Getting rid of U.S. and EU farm subsidies -- and the protectionism they entail -- would do far more to address what liberals like to call a "root cause" of poverty.

Too many African exports, particularly farm commodities, are kept out of Western markets by tariffs, import quotas and price supports for domestic producers. Open those markets and encourage better African governance and, as history has proven over and over, you'll unlock the door for poor nations to generate wealth and free themselves from dependence on handouts. But don't expect the leaders assembled in Scotland to rally behind Mr. Bush's idea; they aren't about to take on powerful domestic interests.

Instead, it's so much easier to demand that American taxpayers pony up ever more money. But as even the likes of rockers Bono and Bob Geldof have acknowledged, the U.S. has hardly been stingy. Mr. Geldof told Time magazine last month, "Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American president for Africa. But it's empirically so."

Last year U.S. bilateral aid to Africa was $3.2 billion compared with $1.1 billion in the final year of the Clinton Administration. The Treasury Department says nearly one-quarter of every dollar in development assistance to sub-Saharan Africa last year came from the U.S. Last month Mr. Bush committed another $674 million in humanitarian aid to the region, which exceeds the entire U.S. budget for sub-Saharan aid in 1997. Amid such facts, it takes nerve for such former Clinton officials as Susan Rice to lecture Americans as ungenerous, as they've been doing for weeks now on op-ed pages.

The Administration has already led the effort to cancel the multilateral debt of the 38 "highly indebted poor countries," or HIPCs. These countries owe $40 billion to international financial institutions such as the World Bank, and the G-8 agreement promises to make the debt payments as they come due over the next 40 years.

The debt-relief agreement also restructures the way aid is distributed. As the loans are paid off, the HIPCs will not automatically get additional lending. Instead, the new money available through the World Bank's International Development Agency and the African Development Bank can be disbursed to any developing country. The deciding factor will be measurable efforts toward good governance.

This is excerpted from an excellent Wall Street Journal commentary piece ($).

This is yet another area where George W. Bush's ideological enemies (unfortunately, that includes most of the world's leaders) have again misunderestimated the man. Assuming, of course, that the agreed objective is effectiveness. In several very important areas (aid to poor countries being one of them), Mr. Bush has put fresh, pragmatic plans into place instead of simply pouring more money down the rathole. The pattern one sees in his policies are those you'd expect to see from an effective businessman: they emphasize results and achievability. At the same time, they hew to a moral standard that (for the most part) transcends any particular religion or creed: what President Bush calls "compassionate conservatism", though he's been much-ridiculed for the use of that phrase.

By comparison, Mr. Bush's ideological enemies seem stuck in time, completely out of ideas. They seem to oppose President Bush reflexively, without thinking at all — if Mr. Bush wants it, they oppose it. All principle and reason is out the window. And a significant percentage of the United States' population (and the world's, for that matter) seem to believe this is a good thing.

Sometimes I despair...