Bush Will Speak to NAACP ... Finally
by TChris
After finding excuses for five straight years to skip the NAACP's annual meeting, President Bush decided to attend this year's event, already underway. He'll speak to the gathering on Thursday.
Every president for the past several decades has spoken to the group. Until now, Bush had been the exception.
"The Decider" decided to miss Julian Bond's speech. It would have been harder for him to endure than Stephen Colbert's roast (Google video).
Bond recounted a recent meeting with Bush, during which he invited him to make the mile trip from the White House to the convention.
He then harshly criticized the administration, slamming it for the war in Iraq, for abusing civil liberties, using the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as an excuse, and implementing an economic policy that gives to the rich and takes from the poor.
"They have continued an assault on our civil liberties and civil rights, orchestrated a mass transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, increased poverty every year they've been in office, created dangerous deficits, substituted religion for science, ignored global warming and wrecked environmental protections," he said of the current administration.
This NY Times story discusses the GOP's failed effort to win over the hearts and minds (and more importantly, the votes) of African Americans. The president's last ditch effort to "tout his civil rights record" will be met with similar incredulity. The president's civil rights record can be summed up in simple words: Katrina. Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib. Wiretaps. Poverty rates (pdf). (Add a few of your own, if you like. The list is illustrative, not comprehensive.)
Trying to work with this president to protect civil rights is hopeless, and Bruce Gordon's keynote speech seemed to acknowledge the president's irrelevance (except as an impediment) to the civil rights struggle.
Gordon said he would like the president to show up but urged NAACP members to focus on more important issues, like state politics, Congress and voter registration.
"The Georgia voter ID law was passed by the state, not the president," he said, referring to a law -- temporarily blocked by a state court -- that would require Georgia voters to show photo identification at the polls.
"Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger killed Stan 'Tookie' Williams, not the president. The governor of Pennsylvania has the power to give clemency to Mumia Abu-Jamal, not the president."
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