Bush the Deserter and the NAACP

We talk to Ian Williams author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past. Ian talks about the recently disappeared records of Bush's service (or lack of service) in the National Guard.

audio here.

Also a commentary on Bush's decision to be the first President since Herbert Hoover to NOT speak to the NAACP during his first term in office.

audio here.

actual text of commentary after the jump.

Bush and the NAACP

It began with Ronald Reagan. A certain reverence for presidents of the past who were previously reviled. Particularly …. one Herbert Hoover. Reagan’s death was cause for many to visit the Hoover library. Reagan was an honorary fellow of the Hoover institution.

We know from the aftermath of Reagan’s death that our current president George W. Bush at the very least wanted to associate himself closely with Ronald Reagan and he has certainly done this, exceeding his mentor in many ways if we consider pre-emptive global strikes and assaults on civil liberties.

However, it seems more likely that Bush is looking further back into history when he searches for his mentors. It would seem that Reagan and Bush share a mentor, and in this effort to emulate his mentor Bush has once again exceeded Reagan.

Hoover was president on Tuesday October 29th, 1929. Black Tuesday. More simply put, Hoover was president during the most infamous stock market crash in history. The crash that preceeded the dust bowl 30’s. Junior Highschoolers all over the country are taught about the Hoovervilles that sprung up after the market crash. Shanty towns inhabited by people who could no longer pay their mortgages.

While our current president has not yet presided over a sudden stock market crash like Black Tuesday, he does have some other economic history that he’s developing in common with Hoover. Short of some dramatic and unexpected employment news, Bush will be the first president since Hoover to preside over an economy that loses jobs. Let me repeat that, Bush without the excuse of a major stock market crash has presided over the country during a time where there are less jobs available than there were when he started. This has not happened since the late 20’s and the presidency of Herbert Hoover.

That is a shame. And surely Bush would pointed to the tragedy of 9/11 as an extenuating factor in the economie’s shrinkage. However Bushes mimicry of Hoover does not stop with economic indicators for the nation.

As we discovered this week…. Bush is about to become the first president…..since Hoover … to not speak to the NAACP in his first term. That’s right….. Reagan did it….. And you can check in at undemocratic.us/amandla to read my previous commentary about Reagan’s racism…… Nixon even went to speak to the largest and oldest civil rights group in the United States. Bush’s own daddy even found it in his heart to speak in front of the NAACP at some point during his first term. Bush had no problem speaking to the NAACP when he was campaigning for the presidency as a compassionate conservative. But now that he’s been elected….what’s changed.

Initially when invited, the NAACP was contacted by a White House scheduler and told that because of a scheduling conflict Bush would not be able to attend the group’s conference which began yesterday.

The best bush could come up with was a spokesman’s statement that the president has, in the past, spoken about “equal opportunity and equal righths for all Americans” in many public places.

The groups President Kweise Mfume countered saying” When you are president, you are elected to be president of all the people. You won’t do that if you refuse to talk.”

More recently Bush has made his inability to address the group a little more clear by reffering top his relationship with the groups leadership as “basically non-existant”. He also mentioned that he had been called “names” by members of the organization.

One assumes he was referring to comments last month from NAACP chairman Julian Bond that reffered to Bush and his supporters as part of a “dark underside of American culture”.

I have no doubt that Bush’s relationship with the leadership of the NAACP is “basically non-existant”. I also have no doubt that there are some worse names that many in leadership would like to call George W Bush. I do wonder why Bush feels that that is an adequate response when he asked why he is dismissing the oldest and largest civil right s group in the United States.

If you visit george w bush dot com and cycle through the various pages, you will find very few faces of people of color….except on one page…the title of that page….. COMPASSION. George W. Bush seems to define compassion as being nice to black folks.

If that’s really how he feels….. why is his relationship with groups that advocate for people of color “basically non-existant”.

Posted by lee at July 11, 2004 07:23 PM
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