You know the pattern: Thinly disguise a corrosive, wasteful giveaway to campaign contributors, (or bible thumpers) give it a pretty name like Ownership Society / Healthy Forests / Faith-Based Initiative / Jobs & Growth Tax Cuts, then sit back and watch as the opposition is forced to oppose something called “Clear Skies.” Even when the argument loses on the merits, the rote repetition of the misleading name gains ground as the fawning media ties itself in knots pointing out that running roads through wilderness and allowing logging companies to clear cut old-growth groves somehow leads to “Healthy Forests.” After five years, plus the campaign before that, it’s safe to say that this strategy has worked out quite well for the Bush administration.

Another gambit familiar to careful Bush observers is the selective use of women as a sympathetic shield whose skirts (or knee-high leather boots) provide a nice safe hiding place for the President. Karen Hughes and Barbara Bush played the part back in Texas with Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush running interference in D.C.

Often times the two will intersect, with one of the Bush mommies manning up against criticism of the deceptively named policies that, despite performing exactly as designed, are delivering results that diverge wildly from the claims that originally helped to sell them in the first place. The latest example comes in the form of “The First Lady goes to Africa”:

President George W. Bush has proposed a $15 billion emergency plan to help stem its spread in Africa and the Caribbean, but critics have complained the program leans too heavily on the promotion of abstinence and fails to place enough emphasis on condoms.

“I think it’s a very fair divide,” Laura Bush said. “The whole plan all along has been Uganda’s plan which is the ABC — abstinence, be faithful and the correct and consistent use of condoms.”
[...]
“I’m always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100 percent effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease,” Bush said.

Look out, the First Lady is irritated. So irritated that she is only able to speak in tautology. Unconfirmed reports have bystanders claiming Mrs. Bush addressed the African toilet paper shortage by urging the people not to eat so they won’t miss the tissue.

Since we’ve already taken a look at the Ugandan plan Mrs. Bush seems so fond of, we know that her endorsement comes either from ignorance or mendacity:

Activists in both Uganda and the United States say the country is now in the grip of condom shortage so severe that men are using plastic garbage bags in an effort to protect themselves.
[…]
“That distortion of the preventive apparatus … is resulting in great damage and undoubtedly will cause significant numbers of infections which should never have occurred.“

Anyone else wondering what kind of irritation follows using old trash bags as prophylactics? (No Homo?) ABC sure is a catchy name, but it’s quite clear that not only doesn’t it work, it’s cruel, inhuman, and puts the entire planet at risk in order to satiate the religious appetites of a few rapture junkies.

It’s a good thing that we don’t have to worry about our image abroad while we’re exporting religion freedom and democracy, the President might have to take a few new wives if that were the case. Anyway, ABC sounds better than “abstinence, be faithful and the correct and consistent use of Hefty bags. And that’s all that really counts anyway.