The comments here show why I detest the liberals as much as the conservatives. Just once I would like someone to admit when a wrong has been done and quit basing there comments on politics. If this man did a good job and the liberals got rid of him I want to know why and it would be no different if it was the conservatives. Saying that the current administration had secret reasons for doing so is crap , these people are elected officials and should answer to the people that they work for.

Not hard to figure this one out.  He was with the old guard and was following the old guard's rules, whether or not he actually drank the Kool-Aid or not.  Considering Dybul's sexual orientation and his academic background, he was in more of a position that anyone to know that tying the foreign aid to a pro-abstinence, pro-life agenda was limiting.  But if Dybul didn't agree to it, Bush probably would have ditched him for a evangelical-licking yesman or scuttled the program entirely.

Giving Dybul the gate clears the way for BHO to appoint someone who doesn't owe Bush and his allies anything.  We all know the new administration is borderline paranoid about having anyone in its ranks who could be tied to the failings of the Bush years, and Dybul's previous associations provide an "in" for people who still want PEPFAR to hue to a rightist agenda.

I can't say I agree with the decision entirely--most likely, Dybul was caught between a rock and the proverbial hard place.  But I do understand why it was done, and how it could be seen as necessary to the improvement and expansion of the program.

Oh please. Maybe they followed the true money trail and some things didn't ad up. I trust our President will do the right thing.

"This article lacks objectivity, and makes broad sweeping assumptions and generalizations."

That's because it was based on a column by the completely non-credible Bush fire-breather Michael Gerson.

Why in the name of all that is good and holy are you quoting the right wing freakazoid Gerson on *anything*, as if he ever drew a nonpartisan breath?

Here in Botswana alone PEPFAR was given over 90 million dollars, so I think 48 Billion may be accurate. I also agree with tmoney, the program could only pay for antiretrovirals not prevention. Who knows how many lives could have been saved from this and other diseases with a good aggressive prevention campaign. More bodies in the previous administration's wake.  

This article lacks objectivity, and makes broad sweeping assumptions and generalizations.

To say that PEPFAR was an "undisputed success" and that everyone was "unified in their enthusiasm" for it is simply false. The fact that PEPFAR had required that a third of its total HIV prevention budget be spent on promoting abstinence, banned any organizations that do outreach work with prostitutes or support abortion is by no means a "marginal" issue, it drains resources away from more effective and comprehensive strategies for fighting the global pandemic.

In addition to sharing the concerns about the biases mentioned above, there's a discrepancy in the amount of money committed to PEPFAR....in the first paragraph, it says $48-billion; in the last, it's a thousand times less:  $48-million.  That's quite a typo.

It's not a firing.  

The man is in a political job, which ordinarily ends with the administration.  The guy himself -- not the Obama folks -- said he'd been asked to stay on, and then said he was leaving.  I agree, some reporting would have been helpful, but doesn't this seem like a bit of a mountain out of a molehill?  Why should he stay on any longer than Karl Rove?

This is very biased writing. The article is almost exclusively weighted against the firing. The few indications that there were reasons for the firing are from two op-ed pieces that are clearly critical of it. Is there really no other side to this story?

Where is the original fact-based reporting in this article? Doesn't Newsweek do that anymore? The headline asks, "Why was the AIDS relief chief let go?" but then provides only speculation by an OpEd columnist in the Washington Post and an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle. Getting a quote by someone who gave the invocation at the inaugural is not the same thing as getting a quote from someone actually works for PEPFAR or another part of the government responsible for the AIDS initiative. Indeed, you haven't even provided quotes from knowledgable epidemiologists or others directly involved in PEPFAR's work who would be qualified to comment on Dybul's tenure and departure.

And what about the "handling" of Dybul's departure? How much different was it than the many other appointed positions in the administration that serve at the please of the president? Some more detail on what happened would have been useful.

I think President Obama will want to choose someone to take that position.  

I am sure it is just a typo, but I don't expect a source like Newsweek to make typos: first the funds are listed as 48 billion and then later as 48 million. Let's leave the financial mistakes to the BM's of the world, not to respected news sources.