(Michael Specter, who has written about HIV/AIDS for more than 30 years, wrote yet another eloquent piece in The New Yorker on-line, on March 11, 2016, following Hillary Clinton’s praise–and then apology–for praising Nancy Reagan for “bringing HIV/AIDS to the world’s attention”, when in fact the Reagans did exactly the opposite.  I have re-printed Specter’s powerful piece on my blog “Radical Correspondence” because he I cannot express my thoughts better than he has on this matter.)

It will take somebody with more psychiatric sophistication than me to figure out how Hillary Clinton could have come to praise Ronald and Nancy Reagan, as she initially did earlier today, for having started the American conversation about AIDS “when, before, nobody talked about it.”

President Reagan’s first speech on the subject wasn’t until May 31, 1987. By then, more than twenty-five thousand people, the majority of them gay men, had died in the United States. His Administration ridiculed people with AIDS—his spokesman, Larry Speakes, made jokes about them at press conferences—and while I do think it rude to speak ill of the dead, particularly on the day of a funeral, this issue cannot be ignored. Mrs. Reagan refused to act in any way in 1985 to help her friend Rock Hudson when he was in Paris dying of AIDS. (Last year, Buzzfeed published documents that make this clear.)
Clinton’s comments caused an outcry and she apologized rapidly, writing, in a statement issued on Twitter, “While the Reagans were strong advocates for stem cell research and finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, I misspoke about their record on H.I.V. and AIDS. For that, I’m sorry.” She deserves recognition for that. But her correction, while not nearly as offensive as her earlier comments, was also misguided.

In the nineteen-eighties, I covered the AIDS epidemic and the stem-cell wars for the Washington Post. I do not recall any occasion on which Ronald Reagan said or did anything that could be considered as “strong” advocacy for stem-cell research. One son, Ron, Jr., was in favor of the research and said so at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the year his father died. That same year, Michael, Reagan’s other son, made a statement about that issue to anti-abortion-rights publications, that nobody ever contradicted: “The media continues to report that the Reagan ‘family’ is in favor of [embryonic] stem cell research, when the truth is that two members of the family have been long time foes of this process of manufacturing human beings—my dad, Ronald Reagan during his lifetime, and I.”

The idea that Ronald Reagan finally did focus on AIDS, if only belatedly, is also a fiction. Reagan was outraged in 1986, when his Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, one of the great heroes of the AIDS epidemic, issued a report that, as I wrote when Koop died, recommended a program of compulsory sex education in schools and argued that, by the time they reached third grade, children should be taught how to use condoms.

In 1990, when Ryan White died of AIDS, Reagan wrote a letter than ended with the words, “Ryan, my dear young friend, we will see you again.” But that letter really just shows the limits of Reagan’s sympathy. Ryan White was an absolutely delightful Indiana schoolboy who, in the early nineteen-eighties, received a transfusion of H.I.V.-infected blood. So he was an “innocent” AIDS victim, unlike the gay men Reagan did not like to mention. It is no coincidence that Reagan would feel comfortable singling White out to honor, nor is it by chance that the single biggest piece of H.I.V. legislation ever enacted in the United States is called the Ryan White Act. If the boy had happened to be a gay teen-ager, does anyone think Ronald Reagan would have written that letter? (I want to stress that this is not meant in any way to diminish the courage of Ryan White, whom I knew and wrote about more than thirty years ago. He was a wonderful person. It wasn’t his fault that he happened to be a straight white teen-ager from the Midwest, rather than a gay man from San Francisco.)

In the end, as Clinton wrote, Nancy Reagan was indeed “strong” on stem-cell research and on Alzheimer’s disease. Her conversion came when her husband plunged into the darkness of the disease. She was desperate, and would have done anything for him. It was a deeply admirable stance, and rare in her conservative world. Millions of other people, however, would surely have benefitted from that kind of support—had she offered it when her husband was capable of doing something to help alleviate so much suffering.

(About Michael Specter:
Michael Specter has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998, and has written frequently about AIDS, T.B., and malaria in the developing world, as well as about agricultural biotechnology, avian influenza, the world’s diminishing freshwater resources, and synthetic biology.)

Once upon a time, there were two close friends who looked very much alike.

Both had luscious, long flowing blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. One of the friends, named Narcissus, was enamored with the beauty of the soul, and decided to dedicate his life to looking deep within. The other, named GoldDrumpf, was enamored with himself, and decided to wander the world to see if he could find anyone as great as he, and pick up girls.

One day, they were playing by a pristine pond, skipping stones across it.   Narcissus asked GoldDrumpf to stop tossing rocks for a second, so they could look at their reflections in the perfectly still water.   Narcissus leaned over the pond, and mistook his reflection for the other side of his soul, reaching out to it. He became numb, and prayed by the water’s edge, and decided to open a monastery on that very spot.

GoldDrumpf, on the other hand, looked at his reflection and was smitten. He brushed his blond hair up into a bouffant on the top of his head. He observed how each smile would be returned with one just like it; each scowl, could be commanded to come in bunches and not as single spies. He was so impressed by what he saw in the pond that he set off to see if such beauty and greatness existed anywhere else.

Narcissus built his simple monastery out of sticks and leaves, while GoldDrumpf headed off to seek fortune, fame, and fawning followers around the world. In City after City, where there were no ponds, GoldDrumpf build towers of shiny gold reflective glass. Each time he walked past one of the glitzy towers he built, he looked at the image of his face in the window, pushed his glowing blonde hair up into a bouffant, and searched for anyone as great as he. He sung to and seduced many people, but each evening he came home alone and feeling empty.

So GoldDrumpf decided to find the nearest pond and contemplate his life. He pulled a bright red silk sweatshirt over his head, tied the golden string tightly around his neck and headed to the swamps of New Jersey. He sat by the edge of the Jersey swamps, peering into the murky water to see his reflection. All he saw was endless darkness. There was no beauty there. He could not see his face, nor his golden hair.  Suddenly, he heard a deep throated, wailing sound.

“Chris-et,” the sound said. “Chris-et.”

GoldDrumpf looked down into the mud, and there, burrowed deep within was the ugliest creature he had ever seen. He picked up the creature in his hand, and stared at it.

“Chris-et,” the creature said. “Chris-et.”

He put the creature in his back pocket and decided to carry it home to show Narcissus. Surely this lowly life form must be a sign of something. When he arrived back home near the pristine pond, he found Narcissus sitting cross-legged at the door of his monastery, as if anticipating his return.

Narcissus, listened to GoldDrumpf’s tales of sturm und drang, of how he searched for one as great and beautiful as he, but always came up empty.  Narcissus shook his head, held his hand out and asked GoldDrumpf to give him the lowly creature of the Jersey Swamp.

“You must set this lowly creature free,” said Narcissus. “He is your soul. He represents all the bad memories of your deformed and wretched father which you have repressed, and run from these many years. You must face up to what a covetous, hateful creature your father was, to what you have inherited from him, and to what you want to be. You can find yourself here, in peace.”

And so, GoldDrumpf agreed to stay at the monastery with Narcissus and set his feelings free by sculpting massive statues of his father, sheathed in white, with towering white conical caps upon each statue’s head. GoldDrumpf built the statues, higher and thicker, connecting them into a huge wall; encircling himself, until the tips of all the hats met, making a yuge dome—the biggest dome anyone had ever seen–shutting out all light and air, and entombing GoldDrumpf forever, like a Pharoah.

And for all anyone ever knew, he lived happily ever after.

Too many deaths now,

Too many deaths then.

Edgar, Bob, Tom & Mike;

Nancy, Cyl & Dan.

Some by cancer,

Some by age,

Some by accident.

All yield rage.

The inconceivability

Of it all, of death;

Of loves there, than gone.

Of life here—one, two—

Disappeared.

Experience, no teacher;

Grief, relentless, ever-rending.

Worlds with endings—amen.

When do we get used to this?

When do we accept

The price for life

To be their last kiss?

(If not for my wonderful friend, mentor and former colleague Jeffrey Bernstein, the founder of Cable Positive, I would not be posting anything about the inconceivable death of Dan Brenner tonight. When I learned earlier this evening that Dan was struck and killed by a car crossing a street in LA, I was numb and stunned into disbelief. My first instinct was to call Jeffrey, who worked closely with Dan in building Cable Positive years before I arrived to run the organization in 2000. Then the three of us worked closely for the next nine years, with many other fine human beings, raising $20 million and securing some $2 billion of pro-bono television airtime for HIV/AIDS education. I’ll have more to say about Dan when I stop crying and can think straight again, but thanks to Jeffrey’s finding a piece I wrote about Dan almost 10 years ago–saluting Dan’s championing an international matching grant program for HIV/AIDS organizations, I will reprint those comments here. On re-reading them, I got to the point where, Dan, a guest professor of mine in Stuart Shorentein’s Communications Law class at Hofstra Law School, told me that I learned well from his lecture since I chose NOT to go into Communications Law. It was Dan Brenner’s classic dry, self-deprecating wit, and when I re-read that line, I broke down and cried and could not continue reading. He was alive again to me, and will always be.)

Inspiring Us With the facts, and His Feelings

By Steve Villano
The first time I met Dan Brenner was over 25 years ago in law school.
I was a student, and he, a guest lecturer, in my Communications Law class, which could sometimes be a bit boring. Except, of course, when Dan Brenner taught. There was no time for boredom. His mind raced so fast, his humor was so relentlessly smart, that if you snoozed, you’d lose.
Fifteen years later, when I was hired to head Cable Positive, I saw Dan again at the National Cable Show in New Orleans. I went up to him at the Cable Positive Board of Directors meeting where I would be introduced, and whispered in his ear.
“I’m the only person in the entire Cable industry who’s ever been your student in law school,” I said, catching him off guard for a nano-second, watching his gentle eyes smile before his warp-speed wit went into action. “And, I must have done a good job,” he said, “because you’ve chosen not to practice Communications Law.”
In fact, Dan did a very good job, which is no surprise to all of us who know, admire and love him. Whether working as Counsel to former FCC Commissioner Mark Fowler, as General Counsel for NCTA over the past 16 years, or as a leading voice on Cable Positive’s Board for the past decade, Dan Brenner’s brilliance in his work was only eclipsed by his compelling compassion.
In venues outside of Cable Positive, it was easy to be distracted by Dan’s intelligence and how devastatingly funny he could be, with a few carefully chosen words and nuances. Cable Positive benefited by both of those gifts of his, but they took a back seat to his passion for the organization’s mission and his deep feeling for individuals—around the world—living with HIV. Yes, Dan was our General Counsel at Cable Positive and our strategic advisor on how best to present our programs to Cable industry CEOs. But he is far more than that.
Dan Brenner represents the heart-and-soul of Cable Positive and why the industry’s commitment to fighting AIDS is so unique. He has always understood intuitively—long before he worked meticulously with staff developing our “One-for-One Program” of domestic and international anti-retroviral drug assistance—how a rich and powerful industry can direct its vast resources to help people in need of assistance.
I always respected and admired how he challenged me constantly at Cable Positive, but I loved the fact that, through our work with him in fighting HIV/AIDS, he has been fearless in acting on his deep feelings for others, inspiring all of us along the way.

There is a delicious irony in the fact that Justice Antonin Scalia, the most influential member of the Supreme Court who, singlehandedly, maneuvered the selection of George W. Bush to be President of the United States in 2000, and built a rabid cult following by crusading against a women’s right to choose and in favor of the right to carry guns, will, in death, become the most important factor in the election of Hillary Clinton as the first female President of the United States, a staunch advocate for strict gun controls.

Scalia’s death, 30 years after being appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, couldn’t come at a better time for both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Overnight, all other issues have been swept aside; the focus is now exactly where Hillary has always wanted it to be—on the Supreme Court and who can be entrusted to appoint the most qualified & reasonable justices. Nothing anyone else may have said or done, on the Right or Left, could catapult this issue into the forefront of the 2016 Presidential campaign the way Scalia’s death has done.

What lies ahead, as the New York Times phrased it, is “a titanic confirmation struggle, fueled by ideological interest groups,” and it’s one which extremists on either fringe will lose. Barack Obama and both Bill & Hillary Clinton, all well-educated lawyers and students of the Supreme Court, know this intuitively. It’s why Bill Clinton’s nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court was such a masterstroke.  She was a jurist with impeccable credentials, and was approved by a 96-3 Senate vote in 1993, less than one year after Clinton was elected.

Ignore the brainless brayings of Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio that “the American people should have a voice,” as a rationale for delaying a confirmation vote of a new nominee until 2017.   The last time the full, national voice of the American people was heard was in 2012 when Barack Obama handily won re-election. Votes for U.S. Senators, or Members of Congress, are regional votes, and regardless of how they are spun, or what an endless array of polls may predict, they never represent the voice of “the American people.” Only Presidential elections do that.

“Poppy” Bush certainly knew that, when, on the cusp of the 1992 Presidential election, he nominated Clarence Thomas to fill a vacancy created by the declining health and retirement of the first African American Justice Thurgood Marshall. Thomas, one of the most poorly qualified nominees and worst justices in the Court’s history, was confirmed by a Judiciary Committee chaired by Joe Biden, and a Senate controlled by Democrats, 52-48.

Obama is duty-bound by the U.S. Constitution to fill the vacancy on the High Court as soon as possible. As Linda Hirshman brilliantly points out in the Febuary 14, Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/02/13/if-republicans-block-obamas-supreme-court-nomination-he-wins-anyway/?postshare=6331455471287593&tid=ss_fb-bottom :

                        “…the GOP might soon reconsider if they see the implications of refusing to allow Obama to replace Scalia: A divided court leaves lower court rulings in place. And the lower courts are blue. Nine of the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals have a majority of Democratic appointees.” 

A legal scholar and constitutional law professor like Obama has too high a regard for the Supreme Court’s place in American history to leave the post vacant, and he has an abundance of highly qualified choices. The leading contender is Judge Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit, confirmed by the U.S. Senate just three years ago, by a 97-0 vote—including the votes of Senators Mitch McConnell, Charles Grassley AND…Ted Cruz.  

The added political benefit of a Srinivasan nomination—both for Obama and for Hillary Clinton—is that he would be the first nominee of Southeast Asian ancestry and the child of Indian immigrants.  Rabid Right Wing attacka on “Sri” would drive people of color further away from the GOP. Plus, Judge Srinivasan’s history of clerking for Reagan appointed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and his impeccable legal credentials, would guarantee that his opponents would be isolated on the Far Right fringe.

In the Democratic primary campaign for President, Scalia’s death doubles-down on the issue of “electability.” If Obama cannot get a nominee through the Senate before Election Day, 2016, will Democrats want to take the chance that Bernie Sanders could win a national election? Notwithstanding the fact that Hillary Clinton already has half of the 750 Democratic Super Delegates locked up, it’s increasingly unlikely Bernie will be the choice– especially when future Supreme Court rulings on a woman’s right to choose—and the increased visibility of the three superb female Justices Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan—will underscore why the Presidency of Hillary Clinton is a watershed opportunity in American history which simply cannot be ignored.

And, we have Antonin Scalia to thank for it.