Blacks for Bush

  Bush would have nothing to gain by visiting NAACP

This editorial is true on facts but doesn't mimic my conclusion. I think Bush should show some balls and tell them he doesn't accept Rice and Colin being called "House Niggers". His NCLB act will help million of black children get a better education. His prescription drug benefit will help many older blacks who didn't have access to good jobs with good pensions due to past racism. And that he believes in right and wrong and that he has rescued over 30 million brown people from Tryants.

I understand why he doesn't waste his time, I wish he would.

Should President Bush have accepted an invitation from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to speak at their annual convention this year?

Surprisingly, the majority of people who responded on the civil rights group's Web site on Monday said "no."

"It is a shame that we have turned into a left-wing bomb-throwing organization. What happened to being independent?" wrote John.

"When you're certain to lose 90 percent of a voting bloc no matter what you do, there is little to be gained by speaking to a group that doesn't represent the majority of that group in the first place. Why should Bush give the press material to be used against him by subjecting himself to the ridicule of the NAACP?" wrote Charles Wheeler.

The lopsided responses could mean a couple of things.

It could mean that a lot of African Americans are tired of the NAACP holding itself out to be nonpartisan when in reality, its leaders are joined at the hip with the Democratic Party. It could also mean that a lot of black people don't care a hoot about where Bush shows up. They didn't elect him and have no intention of voting for him in November.

Hardly an invitation

Although leaders of the oldest and largest civil rights organization characterized their request to Bush as an invitation, it was no such thing. Guests reserve the right to decline an invitation. But a summons is another matter. And every year since Bush took office, the NAACP has summoned him to appear so its leadership can get in his face. He attended once while campaigning in 2000, but he has never gone since he was elected.

This year was no exception. Only now the rhetoric has gotten down to the nitty-gritty.

On Sunday, Julian Bond, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s, and chairman of the NAACP since 1998, blasted the Republican Party for "the politics of racial division to win elections and gain power."

"By playing the race card in election after election, they've appealed to the dark underside of American culture, to the minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality," Bond said. "They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division," Bond said.

"Overdosed on testosterone, they've descended into the very vulgarity they say they want to keep off the airwaves," Bond said, an apparent reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's use of the f-word in a heated exchange with a member of Congress.

I didn't vote for Bush, and he lost my reluctant support for the war on Iraq after his administration was forced to admit there probably aren't any weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq. But I can't blame him for staying out of Philadelphia this week.

After all, the NAACP isn't interested in working with Bush.

With people struggling to keep going in a crippled economy, and the bitter disrespect a lot of black people feel toward this president, his appearance at the NAACP would only be another opportunity for the group to show African Americans how arrogant rich, white, Republicans are.

But because organizations like the NAACP are in bed with the Democratic Party, black voters have lost political clout. John Kerry will stroll into the NAACP convention, promise to protect affirmative action, to increase spending for schools and to kick Bush out of office, and he'll leave with the NAACP's seal of approval on his forehead.

Of course, this is ludicrous.

Once again two super-wealthy white men are running against two super-wealthy white men, and two of those men will try to convince black voters they can better represent their interests because their party is committed to diversity?

What do Dems have to offer?

But what does that mean, if anything. After African Americans gave the last Democratic presidential candidate 90 percent of the black vote, the two black candidates who were bold enough to jump into the primary had to run hobo campaigns. It was a bitter joke.

After hanging in through the entire Democratic primary, Al Sharpton is going to end up with a reality TV show. And although Carol Moseley Braun, the first black female senator, did an admirable job carrying the torch for feminists, her name wasn't even whispered as a possible Kerry running mate. In fact, more than likely another white woman will end up being tapped as vice president before a black man or black woman gets serious support within the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, to make a credible run for president, the candidate still has to be rich, white and male. So if former NBA star Larry Bird thinks white people are tired of paying their money to watch black athletes dominate the sport, then he can imagine how black registered voters must feel.

Ironically, Bush's treatment at the hands of the NAACP isn't much different than the way the Democratic Party has begun to treat black voters. Too often we are not embraced, we are tolerated.

The NAACP didn't really want Bush to come to its party.

Still, leaders had to put his invitation in the mail.