A pretty stunning indictment coming from David Brooks.
Brooks, if you don’t know, has been a conservative commentator for… geeze… decades?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brooks_(commentator)
I used to really enjoy watching him on the PBS Newshour when they would partner him with the late Mark Shields (now with Jonathan Capehart).
Reagan wasn’t good on HIV-AIDS.
George H. W. Bush wasn’t either.
But George W. Bush was.
PEPFAR was Baby Bush’s baby.
I don’t think the passage you quoted was intended to say that Reagan was good on HIV-AIDS, but rather that America ended up being good on HIV-AIDS.