A Victory - And An Apology

Others, such as Jon Kyl, refused to support the bill, but allowed it to be considered. Finally, the Coburn Seven came down to Sen. Jim DeMint -- the DeMint One. To block the AIDS bill, he insisted on keeping the Senate in session on a Friday evening, forcing some of his colleagues to cancel family plans in order to stay in Washington. When it turned out DeMint had not bothered to stay himself, he was booed on the floor of the Senate.

It is now obvious that opposition to AIDS spending is a minority within a conservative minority. And, as G.K. Chesterton observed, sometimes a minority can be a monstrosity.

The largest significance of this bill, of course, is human. Traveling in Rwanda last week, I saw the effect American health funding can have in a well-run, well-intentioned country. With an infusion of bed nets and effective drugs, child malaria deaths were cut by two-thirds in less than two years. In 2003, about 4 percent of Rwandans in need of AIDS drugs were receiving them. In 2007, that figure was about 92 percent.

These are some of the most extraordinary gains in the history of public health -- and these figures eventually come down to a face and a voice. Visiting one tidy, two-room Rwandan home, I met a family of eight, in which the mother and father and their youngest daughter -- a shy and beautiful 10-year-old named Esther -- were HIV positive and on treatment.

Under prompting, Esther told me her favorite subjects were English and math, and, warming with pride, that she stood sixth in her class of 54.

Without the amazing generosity of America, the challenge faced by that family would be a private holocaust of abandonment, mourning and despair.

Indifference, it turns out, is also easier from a distance.