Arafat Has .... AIDS?

Great. More stories the mainstream media avoids...

Former White House speechwriter David Frum has joined the growing chorus of pundits, medical experts, and intelligence operatives who claim Yasser Arafat is likely suffering from AIDS.

Frum, a key figure in Republican politics and the man who coined the terms "axis of evil," writes in National Review Online that Arafat's undisclosed illness is well-known, but has been kept under wraps by the mainstream media.

"Speaking of media bias, here's a question you won't hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?" asks Frum, who also writes for the National Post.

"We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight -- possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?"

Frum pointed to KGB evidence linking Arafat to homosexual activities between the 1960s and 1980s. He cites a 1987 book by Lt.-Gen. Ion Pacepa, the deputy chief of Romania's intelligence service under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In his memoirs Red Horizons, Lt.-Gen. Pacepa claims Mr. Arafat's extensive KGB file revealed him as a voracious and profligate homosexual. He said Romanian agents had taped Mr. Arafat's sex sessions with his bodyguards in Bucharest in 1978.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Well, except in Palestine, where they might frown on this sort of activity more than they would in, say, Ohio.