Yeah, Tina Brown definitely brought in a bunch of changes, and I generally hated them. A lot of it was shock value/ making a personal statement, though, and she had brought things back to a pretty good place by the end of her time there, and things have bounced back to a really good place since. I thought this article was really insightful and important, with a lot of implications.
It did go into why Clinton made AIDS a priority, both official version and more plausible unofficial versions.* His strategies are touched on, and also some of futility of what he's doing -- the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is focusing on a
cure, while what he's doing is necessary but more band-aid-ish and hard to sustain. I'll see if I can find the pertinent part, just a sec...
Quote:Many of the leading activists and scientists in the H.I.V./AIDS field are so grateful for the Clinton Foundation's current activities and so loath to alienate Clinton that they only reluctantly criticize his record as President. Nevertheless, some wish that he were more focussed on elimination of the disease. Seth Berkley, the president and founder of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, praised Clinton for using his influence and "charisma" to work on treatment strategies and drive drug prices down, but he said, "The sad truth is that today's plans for dealing with the epidemic are clearly unsustainable. If we don't find a way to slow down or stop it, AIDS will sap the life out of many societies. My wish is that Clinton would put ending the epidemic back at the top of his AIDS advocacy, and match his current work on AIDS treatment with renewed leadership to create a vaccine." AIDS is spreading so fast that no treatment, not even effective, cheap drugs, can stop it. Worldwide, eight thousand people die of the disease every day.
Really, as I re-read, it's chock full of "issues and stuff." Some of the "stuff" is a detailed study of who Clinton is as a person, which I think is extremely pertinent to all kinds of other things. I LIKE that the article takes the time to add in all of these various details and give you a deep and subtle portrait -- that kind of thing is what most journalistic outlets don't have time for.
*When I was looking for the above, I found the part about why Clinton made AIDS a priority, starting with,
(It's a lot more than that, just directing you to it.)