Hillary Clinton's praise for Nancy Reagan's purportedly pioneering role in the fight against AIDS – a battle from which President and Mrs. Reagan were publicly AWOL during the epidemic's first four years – was thoughtless, inexplicable and hurtful.
Clinton has apologized, as well she should. But her apparently unintentional effort to rewrite history inadvertantly provided a public service.
It was a reminder of the unforgiveable silence of the Reagan White House during the crucial early years of the worst public health crisis in a generation.
The first American cases of what came to be called AIDS were identified in 1981; it was not until Sept. 17, 1985 that President Reagan made his initial public remarks about the incurable plague that by then had killed about 12,000 Americans.
The reticence of the "Great Communicator" to speak publicly about AIDS for four long years helped inspire the powerful Silence = Death logo the group ACT-UP used to brilliant effect in the late 1980s.
Perhaps that was what Clinton had in mind Friday when she lauded the Reagans for helping start a "national conversation" about AIDS.
In 1994, the former president did bravely acknowledge his Alzheimer's diagnosis. Nancy Reagan's devotion to him -- and her advocacy on behalf of other victims of the disease -- were inspiring.
But their early silence about AIDS was appalling.
And pretending otherwise is profoundly disrespectful to tens of thousands of Americans who contracted and succumbed to the disease while the Reagans were in the White House.