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President Bush salutes White House 'pest' Bono
Posted on Friday, March 15 @ 02:32:56 CET by Macphisto
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(Associated Press) -- U2 singer Bono says his new nickname around the White House is "the pest".
Bono met President Mr George W. Bush in the Oval Office to discuss AIDS and President Bush's new plan on US aid to poor countries. Afterward, he accompanied President Bush to a speech and then had another session with White House officials.
"I am a pest, I am a stone in the shoe of a lot of people living here in this town, a squeaky wheel," he said.
"It is much easier and hipper for me to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over my nose - it looks better on the resume of a rock 'n' roll star," he said. "But I can do better by just getting into the White House and talking to a man who I believe listens, wants to listen, on these subjects".
President Bush saluted Bono in the speech for his willingness "to lead to achieve what his heart tells him, and that is nobody - nobody - should be living in poverty and hopelessness in the world".
Bono called the global AIDS epidemic "the defining crisis of our age", and said President Bush branded it "genocide". It was not clear who President Bush believed was perpetrating the genocide.
White House spokesman Mr Scott McClellan said the president "was using it figuratively as a way to describe an immense tragedy". Bono said he interpreted Bush's word to mean that "through our inaction, we are complicit".
The rock star, in a little shot at President Bush, said Aids was "a bigger threat than rogue states. It's a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein".
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