After President Bush declined to attend the NAACP’s annual conference, the organization saw fit to issue a new invitation.
... the civil rights group's [NAACP] president [Kweisi Mfume] Saturday reinvited the president to speak and called on the White House to get over its displeasure with criticism from the group's leaders.In the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, the NAACP sponsored a Texas ad suggesting that then Texas Governor Bush was responsible for the dragging death—lynching—of James Byrd. This, in spite of the fact that two of the perpetrators sat on the state’s death row and a third received life in prison for turning on his companions. The ad stemmed from Governor Bush’s refusal to sign hate-crime legislation. (Death and life in prison: I wonder what worse fate those creatures could have expected under such a law.)
Also implied in the new invitation is a threat.
"At some point in time, you've got to get over it," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said during a news conference as the group's 95th annual convention began. He suggested that the president's absence would be seen by many black voters as writing them off and may spill over to other campaigns.The president should just get over it, eh, Mr. Mfume? What, like a stepped-on toe or and accidentally-spilled drink? Sure, okay. You offer no apology, no nothing. (Heck, even the owner of a stepped-on toe expects an apology.) He should just get over it and make his pilgrimage, genuflecting and kowtowing to the (self-)appointed representatives for black Americans.
The ad was much more than just a stepped-on toe. Governor Bush presided over a state that caught, tried and gravely-sentenced the perpetrators of a heinous act that would have been winked at and gone unpunished a couple of generations prior: a terrorist act by whites perpetrated upon blacks. He did no more and no less than his job.
However, the ad, using the grief and anger of Renee Mullins, James Byrd’s daughter, twists the event in such a manner as to make it appear as though Governor Bush was responsible for her father’s murder. Mullins' words from the ad:
So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.And as if that wasn’t enough, just last month the NAACP chairman, Julian Bond, referred to members of the Republican Party as the Taliban Wing of American politics.
Being compared to two sets of terrorist-murderers isn’t exactly a mild faux pas. It isn’t honest disagreement, nor is it due criticism that comes with the territory of being an elected official. It’s calling the truth a lie and calling a lie the truth. But this last is becoming pretty common in public discourse.
What amazes me is that the NAACP executives expect President Bush to let himself in for similar treatment, without even the slightest bit of contrition for calling him a murderer, not once, but twice; not just four years ago, but a few weeks ago.
With all of that in mind, however, I haven't decided whether I think that he should accept the new invitation or not. More on that is forthcoming.
