Bush Declines Invitation to Speak at NAACP Convention

I don't knock Bush for declining the invitatiton, it really is a no-win situation for him.

To complain that the NAACP is linked to the Democrats is ridiculous. They are both organization that lean to the left. So what?? What's the problem?

 

And now the South votes solidly Republican.

 

You have to think outside the box these days like Cliff Huxtable. Anyways, Bill Cosby's speech/ "comedy show" at the NAACP Convention should make for some good headlines



Bush says no to NAACP convention


By Steve Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


President Bush has declined for the fourth consecutive year to address the annual NAACP convention, which begins Sunday in Philadelphia.
The president's refusal to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has puzzled and angered leaders of the group, which has been critical of the president in the past.

"The truth of the matter is that he has turned us down four out of four times since he became president," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington office.
"We have 500,000 members across the United States as well as membership units in the military," the director said. "It is a loud voice, and it seems to me that the president of an entire country would want to speak with that voice."
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume told the Wilmington (N.C.) Journal this week that "Mr. Bush has now distinguished himself as the first president since Warren Harding who has not met with the NAACP. So, we've got a 95-year history and a president that's prepared to take us back to the days of Jim Crow segregation and dominance, an era where dialogue is required, not distance."
An NAACP spokesman said the president was sent an invitation in December. In a letter received by the NAACP late last month, Mr. Bush declined the invitation, cited conflicting engagements. Sen. John Kerry is confirmed to speak at the convention on Thursday.
The president's only appearance before the group was at its 2000 convention in Baltimore, when he was the Republican presidential candidate.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that "we had other scheduling commitments at the time" of the convention.
The president, though, has other reasons for dismissing the NAACP. Sources said yesterday that Mr. Bush reportedly was "personally hurt" by an ad run by a group loosely connected to the NAACP during the 2000 presidential contest, portraying him as unsympathetic to James Byrd, the black Texan who was dragged to his death by three white men.
Furthermore, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said last year at the group's convention that Republicans appeal "to the dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality."
The NAACP has, over the years, been accused by conservatives of openly pursuing a liberal agenda.
Still, Mr. Bush, who received 8 percent of the nation's black vote in 2000, has little to lose by appearing at the convention.
"From our perspective, it is always good for the president to appear before all groups to articulate his continued vision for the country," said Alvin Williams, president of the conservative Black America's Political Action Committee. "But I think he does feel offended by the 2000 presidential campaign, when some very nasty things were alleged about him."
Also slated to appear at the convention is Bill Cosby, who has sparked debate with his recent public statements regarding irresponsibility in some segments of the black community. He is scheduled to perform at an event billed as a "comedy show" on Tuesday night.
"Those who want to hear the truth will come to see him," said James M. Kilby, former president of an NAACP chapter in Warren and Page counties in Virginia. "I think he will play well there."
In May, Mr. Cosby told people gathered at an NAACP event in Washington that "lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids — $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics?' "
Last week, appearing at the Rev. Jesse Jackson's annual Rainbow/PUSH conference in Chicago, Mr. Cosby told the audience that "you've got to stop beating up your women because you can't find a job because you didn't want to get an education and now you're [earning] minimum wage."

 

Another specious argument. Those guns are not legally procured. Kind of hard to legislate them out of existence.

 

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

 

Why oh why would he accept this invitation? A photo op is one thing, but to have another PR debacle of him getting heckled and booed while visiting MLK Jr.'s grave is not on his wish list. It is smart to decline, all things considered.

 

I'm not making a gun legislation policy analysis;

I'm just saying that this statement:

is inherently foolish.

Statistics do not show that "guns don't kill black people, other blacks do.";

Statistics will show that blacks, whites, hispanics and asians all kill black people, with guns, knives, poisons, chains, cars, , bare hands, medieval flails, and other such implements.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" isn't a statistic, it's a slogan.

 

I know it is not a statistic, but it is truthful. It is the mental decision to pull that trigger, stab someone, cleave someone's head with an axe, run over someone with a car, throw the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch that kills someone, not the implement itself. A sword is only as mighty as the hand that wields it.

 

It means that how people voted 60 years ago is totally different from the way they vote today. Calm down. If I wanted to say republicans are racists I would have just wrote it.

 

I concur... by the way, does anyone know if Clinton ever appeared before the NRA or the Tobacco Groweers?

 

One's a political party and the other's not?

 

It might not be a political party by definition but it is political. Just like PETA is or the AARP. You guys are reaching.

 

The problem is that the Democratic Party owns The NAACP. That doesn't really sound political to me. It sounds like a new kind of slavery-- which is about powerlessness.

 

Gore appeared before the Tobacco growers....and then bashed smoking, sobbing about his sister, dead from lung cancer a week later in front of some anti-smoking nazis. What a two-faced punk.

 

Cool. I am going to powerlessness B-Bob in the head if I ever meet him.

 

Holy sh-t!

I thought all these years, in the unlikely event that some sonofabitch was going to post anything by Phillip Guston ever, at all, once, on this BBS, it was going to be me.

I lost Brian Cardinal tonight, and lost first Guston.

Shaping up to be a lousy weekend.

 

You thought you'd post it before someone who specializes in Art History?

 

So instead of 92% of blacks voting against him after he did attend the NAACP annual conference, how many will vote against his after he has declined for four consecutive years? In other words, I would have told the group that was always working against me to f*** off, and probably wouldn't have been as polite about it as Bush. I can't think of a single group I could draw a comparison to that votes 92% against Democrats, certainly not a single ethnic group. I wonder why balcks are the only ethnic group to form such a monolithic voting bloc.

 

2. Teachers' Unions

3. Trial Lawyers' Association