Bono & Bush at National Prayer Breakfast

whitehouse.gov
George and Laura Bush met last summer with Bono and Bob Geldof at the G-8 Summit.

Christianity Today talked-up the appearance today of President Bush at the National Prayer Breakfast - but it was really all about Bono:

"After 9/11, we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. We were told that America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. … But America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors." Bono said. "You have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. And Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support of the Global Fund, has put 700,000 people onto life-saving antiretroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria. … But here's the bad news. There is so much more to do. There is a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response."

Bono, clearly, is showing no inclination whatsoever of sounding like a politician.

"While the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject," Bono said. "There are the laws of the land, and then there is a higher standard. We can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so that they say it's okay to protect our agriculture, but it's not okay for African farmer to protect their agriculture to earn a living. As the laws of man are written, that's what they say. But God will not accept that."

Bush, meanwhile, may well have recalled what getting the Bono "treatment" is like from go-rounds on debt relief and health funding, and perhaps measured his words accordingly:

"Over the past five years, we've been inspired by the ways that millions of Americans have answered that call [to love your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself]," Bush said. "After Katrina, volunteers from churches and mosques and synagogues and other faith-based and community groups opened up their hearts and their homes to the displaced. We saw an outpouring of compassion after the earthquake in Pakistan and the tsunami that devastated entire communities. We live up to God's calling when we provide help for HIV/AIDS victims on the continent of Africa and around the world."

Bush has got credibility when he says this - no matter how his critics try to spin. As reported by Newsmax, Bush was not shy in his praise for Bono:

"The thing about this good citizen of the world is he's used his position to get things done," Bush said. "You're an amazing guy, Bono. God bless you."

There's only one thing to say to that: Amen.