Bush's Not-So-Big Tent

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Registered: 03-25-2003
Bush's Not-So-Big Tent
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Fri, 07-16-2004 - 3:17am
Bush's Not-So-Big Tent

By BOB HERBERT

July 16, 2004

Just as George W. Bush is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs, he is now the first president since Hoover to fail to meet with the N.A.A.C.P. during his entire term in office.

Mr. Bush and the leadership of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization get along about as well as the Hatfields and the McCoys. The president was invited to the group's convention in Philadelphia this week, but he declined.

That Mr. Bush thumbed his nose at N.A.A.C.P. officials is not the significant part of this story. The Julian Bonds and Kweisi Mfumes of the world can take care of themselves at least as well as Mr. Bush in the legalized gang fight called politics.

What is troubling is Mr. Bush's relationship with black Americans in general. He's very good at using blacks as political props. And the props are too often part of an exceedingly cynical production.

Four years ago, on the first night of the Republican convention, a parade of blacks was hauled before the television cameras (and the nearly all-white audience in the convention hall) to sing, to dance, to preach and to praise a party that has been relentlessly hostile to the interests of blacks for half a century.

I wrote at the time that "you couldn't tell whether you were at the Republican National Convention or the Motown Review."

That exercise in modern-day minstrelsy was supposed to show that Mr. Bush was a new kind of Republican, a big-tent guy who would welcome a more diverse crowd into the G.O.P. That was fiction. It wasn't long before black voters would find themselves mugged in Florida, and soon after that Mr. Bush was steering the presidency into a hard-right turn.

Among the most important props of that 2000 campaign were black children. Mr. Bush could be seen hugging them at endless photo-ops. He said a Bush administration would do great things for them. He promised to transform public education in America. He hijacked the trademarked slogan of the Children's Defense Fund, "Leave No Child Behind," and refashioned it for his own purposes. He pasted the new version, "No Child Left Behind," onto one of the signature initiatives of his presidency, a supposedly historic education reform act.

The only problem is that, to date, the act has been underfunded by $26 billion. A lot of those kids the president hugged have been left behind.

And why not? They can't do much for him. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" captured a telling presidential witticism. Mr. Bush, appearing before a well-heeled gathering in New York, says: "This is an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

It wasn't really his base. But the comment spoke volumes.

Mr. Bush said he was a different kind of Republican, but what black voters see are tax cuts for the very wealthy and underfunded public schools. What they see is an economy that sizzles for the haves and the have-mores, but a harrowing employment crisis for struggling blacks, especially black men. (When the Community Service Society looked at the proportion of the working-age population with jobs in New York City it found that nearly half of all black men between the ages of 16 and 64 were not working last year. That's a Depression-era statistic.)

In Florida, where the president's brother is governor, and Texas, where the president once was the governor, state officials have been pulling the plug on health coverage for low-income children. The president could use his considerable clout to put a stop to that sort of thing, but he hasn't.

And now we know that Florida was gearing up for a reprise of the election shenanigans of 2000. It took a court order to get the state to release a list of 48,000 suspected felons that was to be used to purge people from the voting rolls. It turned out that the list contained thousands of names of black people, who tend to vote Democratic, and hardly any names of Hispanics, who in Florida tend to vote Republican.

Once their "mistake" was caught, the officials scrapped the list.

Mr. Bush plans to address the Urban League convention in Detroit next week. That would be an excellent time for him to explain to an understandably skeptical audience why he campaigned one way — as a big-tent compassionate conservative — and governed another.

http://nytimes.com/2004/07/16/opinion/16HERB.html?hp

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sat, 07-17-2004 - 2:32pm
Either Bob Herbert is an idiot or he thinks his readers are. The unemployment rate is 5.6% The average since 1970 has been 6.3%. It is absurd to compare today's below average unemployment rate to the great depression, yet he tries to get away with doing just that.

Good for President Bush for not subjecting himself to the idiots of the NAACP. They were insincere when they invited him. They just wanted the president to be seen on the news being disrespected by them for political reasons. I'm glad he has more dignity than to acquiesce.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Sat, 07-17-2004 - 7:16pm
I could not have said it better myself.

The national portion of the NAACP used to stand for something good, but the national leadership is nothing more than the hatchet men for the left wing of the Democratic Party. The sad thing is that the local chapters do not always agree with Julian Bond or Emfume, but you never hear about that because the small chapters are inconsequential in relation to the national stage.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sat, 07-17-2004 - 11:41pm
Are you refering to all black people as idiots or just the ones that belong to NAACP? Oh but then you called all democrats terrorists go figure.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 12:19pm
I just re-read my post. I had forgotten what I had written in the second paragraph, lol. Obviously I don't think all black people are idiots since I have a pretty high self esteem... Nor do I believe that all members of the NAACP are idiots. Jumping to that conclusion from what I wrote seems a bit hysterical to me.


Edited 7/18/2004 12:24 pm ET ET by iminnie833
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 1:18pm

Good for President Bush for not subjecting himself to the idiots of the NAACP. They were insincere when they invited him. They just wanted the president to be seen on the news being disrespected by them for political reasons.


I can see why marysback responded as she did.


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 6:05pm
Please don't feel that you need to waste your time; it may take you away from being rude to another poster; you said that the dems and terrorists are on the same side. How is that not saying we are the same??? Why would you even make a statement like that except to inflame. You said the 'idiots' at the NAACP. I really don't want to re-read your posts they were bad enough the first time. I have never been rude to any one I don't believe on this or any other board why do you feel the need to???????
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 6:09pm
I wonder how funny that was to our black posters??? LOL
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 11:18pm
You said, "I have never been rude to any one I don't believe on this or any other board why do you feel the need to???????"

I felt that you WERE very rude and that I was responding in kind.

You say, "you said that the dems and terrorists are on the same side. How is that not saying we are the same??? Why would you even make a statement like that except to inflame."

The THREAD was about whether or not to be afraid to attend the Republican or

Democratic convention due to the threat of terrorism. It is my OPINION that it should be safe to attend the Democratic convention since it would be stupid for the terrorists to harm them at this time. If that offended you it was YOUR CHOICE to be offended, not something that I did.




Edited 7/19/2004 12:23 am ET ET by iminnie833

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Sun, 07-18-2004 - 11:22pm
(rolling my eyes)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Mon, 07-19-2004 - 10:25am

Okay...everyone take a deep breath and let's focus on the topic here.