Washington Post: George W. Bush reminds us how decent leaders sound
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist

“…In receiving the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished International Leadership Award for his work [to] fight HIV/AIDS through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) initiative in Africa, [former President George W. Bush] explained, ‘In 2003, we decided that the greatest, wealthiest nation ever had a moral responsibility to intervene. … We recognized, too, that the United States had a national security imperative to act. Societies mired in disease breed hopelessness and despair, leaving those forgotten by wealthy nations susceptible to recruitment by radical extremists.’ … Bush, like every other modern president save the current one, understood the aim to use America’s resource to make the world safer and freer, which in turn will accrue to our benefit. (PEPFAR, Bush explained, ‘It’s the best kind of diplomacy there is. It’s soft power at its most beautiful.’) …” (5/11).