Former Time Editor Hits Mandela From the Left: Not 'Very Progressive About HIV'

Matthew Balan | December 6, 2013
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[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]

On Friday's CBS This Morning, former Time magazine managing editor Richard Stengel unexpectedly zeroed in on a part of Nelson Mandela's legacy that apparently wasn't sufficiently left wing. Moments after he lionized Mandela as "the George Washington of South Africa", Stengel asserted that "he [Mandela] had not been very progressive about HIV and AIDS when he was president".

Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon also sang Mandela's praises, to the point that he made an eyebrow-raising comment about the supposed extent that the former South African president stands apart in recent history:

BOB SIMON, 60 MINUTES CORRESPONDENT: ...[I]t's even more relevant, I think, to realize – and this is the sad part – that there's no one around today anywhere like him. If one wants to think of the last great politician, we're going back to the Second World War. There's been nobody like that, and there's nobody around today – which has – just goes to show where our world has gone.

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