Right now, Jim Lehrer is hosting a discussion with Paul Begala and Michael Gerson about the presidential transition and its implications for foreign policy decision-making in the next Administration.

You can watch a live stream of the event currently taking place in Washington, DC here.

They will spend time discussing the Global Plum Book. From the Center for US Global Engagement:

The Center for U.S. Global Engagement today released its Global Plum Book identifying the 100 key leadership positions that will shape the next Administration’s strategy for global development and diplomacy. Accompanying the report are “First Steps” for how the transition team can successfully translate the pledges of Candidate Obama – the most in-depth and far reaching global development platform of any candidate in history – into the policies of President Obama.

-Chris Scott

UPDATE: The discussion has concluded, but here’s a video of the event

I grabbed some video with a tiny handheld camera at this morning’s ONE panels at the RNCC. Better quality footage will show up later, but I want to share some highlights with you now.

The first clip below is of Senator Frist introducing the panel and speakers. The second clip is of Michael Gerson talking about his experience crafting PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief).

I didn’t have a tripod of any kind sadly, so if shaky camera movements remind you too much of the Blair Witch Project- you can hold off a couple days until we have the full footage available.

Michael Gerson talks of ONE’s Rwanda trip in an Op-Ed in today’s Post. In the piece, he repeats a truth that we as ONE members have been trying to get out about the immense progress in Rwanda since the 1994 genocide – saying that the country is making some of the most rapid progress in the history of public health.

Cindy McCain’s first visit to this country, in 1994, was during the high season of roadblocks and machetes and shallow graves.

…[Last week, Cindy] McCain joined a bipartisan delegation — including former Senate majority leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle — organized by the ONE Campaign, a group that advocates for the fight against global poverty and disease. (I am also involved in the efforts of ONE.)

McCain came back to a very different Rwanda — peaceful, well governed, and making, with American help, some of the most rapid progress in the history of public health. What has struck me, says McCain, is that most people are reconciling. A woman I met was gang-raped [during the genocide], her throat was slit, she lost her whole family, but was willing to forgive. The reason this will be a successful country is the women — some of the strongest, most inspiring women I have ever met.

Just a heads up that tomorrow the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations will be analyzing President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

Check back to our Feb 4 post for intel on president’s 2009 budget request.

And see Michael Gerson’s Feb 18 post here on the ONE Blog for more on the MCC.

-Virginia Simmons

As President Bush visits Africa this week, much attention will focus on the fight against HIV/AIDS, and rightly so. More than 1.4 million men, women and children now receive anti-retroviral drugs because of the generosity of the American people. The President’s AIDS initiative has been a soaring success – a case study in the power of American compassion to save lives.  
 
But while the fight against HIV/AIDS deserves this attention, there is other good news on the African continent that goes beyond the progress made against this terrible epidemic.
 
On his visit to Tanzania, President Bush signed the largest agreement ever – $700 million – as part of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Like the President’s AIDS initiative, the MCA is a bold, innovative venture of American leadership.
 
The MCA has fundamentally changed the way the United States delivers financial support. The account gives African leaders and governments incentives and practical help to fight corruption, free their economies from repressive and unfair policies and increase investment in education and health. Countries that take these courageous steps are awarded a MCA compact. To date, more than two-thirds of the MCA’s $5.5 billion is being invested in African countries that are enacting broad-based, fundamental reforms. Other African nations, which naturally want their own financial support, are getting the message and starting down the difficult but crucial road toward government transparency and accountability.
 
More than simply sending dollars, the MCA lays the groundwork for sustainable growth in Africa – the type of growth that can raise millions above extreme poverty. Economic development, in the long run, results from trade and foreign investment. The most effective kind of aid helps build the infrastructure, human capital and legal structures that encourage trade and invite investment – roads, health care, education and strengthening the rule of law.
 
Today, the MCA has been such a success in Africa that there are many more countries competing for its funds than there are funds available. Congress should fully fund this vital program. And I hope ONE Members, and all voters who care about seeing the African people succeed, will push their leaders to invest in the promise of the African people by investing in the MCA.
 
-Michael Gerson

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2/19/08 UPDATE: This was cross posted onto Townhall today.

Michael Gerson penned an op-ed in the Washington Post today titled “Why McCain Endures,” which sites the senator’s support for ONE Vote ‘08.

An excerpt:

“McCain has argued that the “protection and promotion of the democratic ideal” is the “surest source of security and peace.” He calls for a “League of Democracies” that would “relieve human suffering in places such as Darfur, combat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, fashion better policies to confront environmental crises. …” And McCain is one of the strongest Republican supporters (along with Huckabee) of the commitments of the bipartisan ONE Campaign to treat global AIDS, eradicate malaria, fight hunger and provide clean water in the poorest places on Earth. (By way of disclosure, I sit on the advisory board of ONE Vote ‘08.)

This kind of foreign policy idealism has been reaffirmed, not because it is wildly popular but because it is unavoidable. America faces a series of challenges — from terrorism to drug cartels to infectious disease — that take root in failed regions of the world. Our efforts to oppose despair and disorder have a very realistic purpose. The tradition of moral internationalism — which reaches back to Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan — is more necessary than ever. And it is durable enough to survive some serious, early mistakes in Iraq.

The lessons of the McCain resurrection run deeper than the limits of talk radio: Candidates of unity are more appealing and electable. American ideals are indispensable in the conduct of American foreign policy.

If you have an online subscription to the Washington Post, you can read the full version here – or you can also read it on the blog “Real Clear Politics” here.

-Virginia Simmons

Michael Gerson, op-ed coumnist at the Washington Post, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, President George W. Bush’s former chief speechwriter from 2001 until June 2006, and member of the ONE Vote 08 National Advisory Board. placed a remarkable op-ed about AIDS in today’s Boston Globe.

A couple of excerpts:

“ONE OF THE most uncomfortable and encouraging conversations I’ve ever had took place a few years ago at an overcrowded AIDS testing clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A nurse had asked me if I wanted to meet one of the women using the clinic’s services. I assumed I’d be talking to someone who’d received a negative report. Speaking through an interpreter, I discovered that the young girl sitting across from me was still waiting on the result of her test. I awkwardly assured her that I wouldn’t disturb her any further. She interrupted: “A few years ago, I would never have talked to a foreigner about AIDS. But now I know that even if I’m positive, it isn’t a death sentence. Three of my friends have already been tested, and I need to know.”

This is one reason AIDS drugs, when they arrive, are such a miracle. Without the realistic hope of treatment, there is little motivation to be tested; most of us would prefer denial to hopeless certainty. And without AIDS testing, preventing the spread of the disease is difficult; denial increases risky sexual behavior…”

“Treatment and prevention, in the end, cannot be separated. And the goal of universal access to treatment seems morally unavoidable. However expensive this commitment might be, there is also a cost to letting 40 million people or more die – a cost the world should not be willing to pay. But we also need to be realistic about the nature of this commitment. Defeating AIDS will require major new efforts on prevention. And moving toward universal treatment, according to the United Nations, will require between $32 billion and $51 billion by 2010. America has done much – and still we face an ocean of need.”

Read the full piece here.