The AP reports that George Bush has turned down an NAACP invitation to speak at their annual convention, making Bush the first president since Hoover not to attend at least one during his term in office:

Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention in Baltimore when he was a candidate. But he has declined invitations to speak in each year of his presidency, the first president since Herbert Hoover not to attend an NAACP convention, John White, a spokesman for the group, said Wednesday. ...

Democratic challenger John Kerry accepted an invitation to speak next Thursday on the final day of the convention, the NAACP said.

I expect this story will get more play in the media than, say, the arrest of two Iranian intelligence agents building car bombs in Iraq or the confirmation that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger. However, what they won't report, and which the AP manages to leave out of the story, is its context.

As mentioned, Bush the candidate appeared at the NAACP Convention in 2000, something rarely done by Republican presidential nominees, in order to stimulate a dialogue between the GOP and the nation's oldest civil-rights group. The result was a vicious, slimy political attack by the NAACP to tie Bush to the drooling bigots that dragged James Byrd to death in Texas in 1998, while Bush was governor. The TV ad had the dead man's daughter narrating over the image of a truck bumper trailing a chain:

I’m Renee Mullins, James Byrd’s daughter.

On June 7, 1998 in Texas my father was killed. He was beaten, chained, and then dragged 3 miles to his death, all because he was black.

So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.

Never mind that "hate-crime" legislation goes far further towards establishing thought crime than the Patriot Act's supposed fascist inclinations by allowing library records to be subpoenaed for terrorism investigations. Never mind that a Texas court found these lunatics guilty in short order. Never mind that they received the death penalty -- which, I believe, the NAACP opposes. What does being charged with a hate crime add to a Murder 1 conviction that results in a death penalty? Lip service. Which, by the way, is all that the NAACP's invitation to Bush amounts to.

The NAACP should get used to lip service, by the way, in accepting John Kerry's invitation. So far he's stood up his hometown mayor and fellow Democrat, and blown off the NEA's convention as well. Perhaps they should check with Governor Mitt Romney to see if he'll be free ... just in case.

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The NAACP is getting the Presidential brush-off... President Bush declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP's annual convention, the group said.Needless to say, the NAACP was in high dudgeon... “We’re not fools. If you’re going to court us, court... [Read More]

Tracked on July 8, 2004 7:44 AM