Saturday, July 24, 2004
Newt-The NAACP Extreme Rhetoric
Newt: You would expect the president to turn down an invitation from a group whose leaders are quoted saying that a Republican's idea of equal rights is "the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side, " or that Bush intended to take America "back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance."
Bush and the NAACP: Extreme Rhetoric Explains Decision
Try to imagine the outrage the liberal left would feel if President Bush turned down an invitation to speak at a MoveOn.org event. Not shocked? Of course not; it is reasonable to expect the president to reject an invitation from MoveOn.org, whose Web site featured a contest entry that famously compared him to Hitler.
This election-year hyperbole did not come from MoveOn.org, but instead from the two leaders of the supposedly nonpartisan NAACP, Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume.
Chairman Bond recently said that Republicans "draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics" and want to "write bigotry back into the Constitution." He has also compared conservatives to the KKK and the Bush administration to the Confederacy.
The NAACP's campaign against the president isn't new... In September 2000, the NAACP National Voter Fund ran a vicious ad depicting the horrific death of James Byrd by racist killers. The message of the ad was clear -- elect George W. Bush and, if you are an African American, this is your future.
A Los Angeles Times editorial last week called the president's decision to "boycott" the NAACP "inexplicable." If the NAACP really values Bush's attention so much, it is the barbed remarks of Bond and Mfume that are "inexplicable."
Mfume provided a choice example of destructive political dialogue last week when he urged Bush to reconsider his decision and in the same breath suggested that if Bush only agrees "to meet with those who agree with him, we are getting closer to the previous regime in Baghdad than we are to a democracy."
Bond and Mfume have made it clear that they are not interested in the NAACP representing African Americans, but instead, want to have the organization represent the left by acting as a shill for the Democratic Party.
A recent Newsweek poll showed that 66 percent of African Americans favor school vouchers, yet the NAACP has come out firmly against school choice. A recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found that 64 percent of blacks oppose same-sex marriage. Bond has even positioned the NAACP against personal Social Security accounts -- an initiative that Zogby polls show is supported by upwards of 60 percent of African Americans.
Mfume called conservative civil-rights groups "ventriloquist dummies" for the "ultraconservative right-wing attacker." In other words, any NAACP member whom Bush might have won over at the conference would have been immediately ostracized.
The choice for the members of the NAACP is: Will they allow their leaders to continue on a destructive path and its descent into irrelevance, or replace them and save the historic civil-rights organization that once had a proud tradition of representing African Americans who are interested in a better life for their families and their communities?
Read more on this subject in Related Hot Topics:
President Bush's Speech:
President Emphasizes Minority Entrepreneurship at Urban League
Bush to Urban League: Don't Be Taken for Granted
Bush Tells Blacks, 'I'm Here to Ask for Your Vote'
In an Address to Black Leaders, Bush Endeavors to Break the Ice
Bush and the NAACP: Extreme Rhetoric Explains Decision
Try to imagine the outrage the liberal left would feel if President Bush turned down an invitation to speak at a MoveOn.org event. Not shocked? Of course not; it is reasonable to expect the president to reject an invitation from MoveOn.org, whose Web site featured a contest entry that famously compared him to Hitler.
This election-year hyperbole did not come from MoveOn.org, but instead from the two leaders of the supposedly nonpartisan NAACP, Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume.
Chairman Bond recently said that Republicans "draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics" and want to "write bigotry back into the Constitution." He has also compared conservatives to the KKK and the Bush administration to the Confederacy.
The NAACP's campaign against the president isn't new... In September 2000, the NAACP National Voter Fund ran a vicious ad depicting the horrific death of James Byrd by racist killers. The message of the ad was clear -- elect George W. Bush and, if you are an African American, this is your future.
A Los Angeles Times editorial last week called the president's decision to "boycott" the NAACP "inexplicable." If the NAACP really values Bush's attention so much, it is the barbed remarks of Bond and Mfume that are "inexplicable."
Mfume provided a choice example of destructive political dialogue last week when he urged Bush to reconsider his decision and in the same breath suggested that if Bush only agrees "to meet with those who agree with him, we are getting closer to the previous regime in Baghdad than we are to a democracy."
Bond and Mfume have made it clear that they are not interested in the NAACP representing African Americans, but instead, want to have the organization represent the left by acting as a shill for the Democratic Party.
A recent Newsweek poll showed that 66 percent of African Americans favor school vouchers, yet the NAACP has come out firmly against school choice. A recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found that 64 percent of blacks oppose same-sex marriage. Bond has even positioned the NAACP against personal Social Security accounts -- an initiative that Zogby polls show is supported by upwards of 60 percent of African Americans.
Mfume called conservative civil-rights groups "ventriloquist dummies" for the "ultraconservative right-wing attacker." In other words, any NAACP member whom Bush might have won over at the conference would have been immediately ostracized.
The choice for the members of the NAACP is: Will they allow their leaders to continue on a destructive path and its descent into irrelevance, or replace them and save the historic civil-rights organization that once had a proud tradition of representing African Americans who are interested in a better life for their families and their communities?
Read more on this subject in Related Hot Topics:
President Bush's Speech:
President Emphasizes Minority Entrepreneurship at Urban League
Bush to Urban League: Don't Be Taken for Granted
Bush Tells Blacks, 'I'm Here to Ask for Your Vote'
In an Address to Black Leaders, Bush Endeavors to Break the Ice
