Bush and the NAACP

My goodness gracious!

I watched the President's speech on C-SPAN tonight at the NAACP convention and decided that it was the best speech this man has ever given! Oh, there were several things which I didn't quite agree with, but frankly, it was one of the best ‘motherhood and apple pie' speeches I've ever heard! And this guy is very good at telling us of the great and wonderful things his administration is going to do for us like weaning us away from middle eastern oil and then taking over Iraq. His visions seem wonderful - except, they never seem to happen - or if they do, not quite the way we had hoped...

It was obvious pandering to American Blacks and Condi Rice was very conspicuous in the audience amidst her black brethren nodding and smiling in approval of her boss's choice of words. I was also amazed to see that the very pink Carl Rove was in attendance flanked by the blackest faces one could find in darkest Africa.

I wonder how many votes he won in his act of contrition when he pointed out, "I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historical ties with the African-American community," Bush said. "For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party."

Of course, the Republican party today is in no way the same radical progressive party of Lincoln's time. Nor is the Democratic party which supported slavery the same party as today's party which caters to the plight of the down trodden and is concerned with social issues. They have, in effect, reversed roles in the last 100+ years.

In this case, I think he was right and being honest. For a Republican, Bush doesn't appear to be a racist. However, his party most certainly is racist - especially his political base, southern white fundamentalists, so he has had to walk a fine line. Perhaps I should say ‘had to walk a fine line' because now, he is a lame duck. They can't hurt him - and it does seem that Republicans in Congress are somewhat in revolt now when they were originally as the Dems say, "in lock-step".

I've noticed here and there that since he was re-elected that he has done things which I approved of on occasion. In my opinion, he did everything wrong during his first term. For example, I approve of his stance on immigration recently as opposed to his catering to oil interests in conquering Iraq when he should have been going after terrorists during his first term.

So, in the final analysis - it was a great speech and to the extent that blacks are gullible may have gotten a few votes for the Republican party this coming November. That, of course, is why he finally attended the NAACP annual conference for the first time....