While John Kerry is out bad-mouthing the President for declining to speak to the NAACP, I thought it would be useful to take a trip down memory lane to the President’s last public contact with the NAACP:
The president has left Atlanta after a Thursday visit to lay a wreath at the tomb of Martin Luther King Jr. and to attend a campaign fund-raiser.
Hundreds of protesters greeted President Bush in Atlanta shortly before 4 p.m. as he placed a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr. on what would have been the slain civil rights leader’s 75th birthday.
The president walked slowly down Freedom Walk and crossed the bridge leading to the King crypt with King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, on his left, and the civil right leader’s sister, Christine King Farris, on his right.
Bush received the wreath from an Air Force soldier and walked over and placed it in front of the crypt and stood in silent prayer for about a minute.
In the background protesters could still be heard chanting, and their boos grew louder as the president stood before the crypt…
Charming.
At an NAACP press conference this morning at the Atlanta chapter’s headquarters, the group questioned the true motive for Bush’s visit.
Bush contacted the King Center late last week to say he’d be in Atlanta today and wanted to pay his respects by placing a wreath at King’s crypt.
“Did he come to raise funds for Republicans and stop by to lay a wreath as a secondary ploy or is he sincere about laying the wreath and the fund-raising secondary?” said Dr. R.L. White, president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP.
“With a spoken position against what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for, the Bush administration has stood against — affirmative action [and refused] to meet with the national leadership of civil rights organizations, including the premier organization, the NAACP, which has been in existence since 1909.”
I am not going to rehash all of the Taliban references and outright hostility this President has received from Julian Bond, Kweisi Mfume, and the rank and file of the NAACP. In short, they do not deserve a visit from the President. Personally, I would have sent the Vice-President, who could promptly tell the crowd to go Cheney themselves.
roger
It always amazes me how many people presume to know that MLK would have been a supporter of Affirmitive Action.
Can anyone explain this, since it seems to be completely opposed to his actual desire that people not be “judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (paraphrased)
By today’s standards, MLK was a Republican.
shark
Can’t definitively say what King would think on an issue, but I like to think he would have great disdain for race huskcters and poverty pimps like Sharpton, Jackson, MFune, Bond, etc.
Kimmitt
“It always amazes me how many people presume to know that MLK would have been a supporter of Affirmitive Action.”
Mostly his stated support for similar programs, in particular his pioneering of “Operation Breadbasket.”
“By today’s standards, MLK was a Republican.”
This is absolutely false; MLK was not a cheap labor conservative, a jingoist, a homophobe, a racist, or an antipoor ideologue — and therefore has none of the qualities necessary for membership in the coalition which makes up the Republican Party. The Republican Party, to its credit, now at least pays lip service to King’s ideals of dignity for all, but it is hardly an organization to which Dr. King would consider belonging.
To be frank, he would find both Parties to be lacking in that regard, I imagine, and would be what he was — an extraordinarily accomplished activist.
Dorian
Kimmet,
Thanks for your keen insight into the defining characteristics of ALL Republicans.
I
John Cole
Kimmitt-
It has been amusing watching your decline from condescending graduate student to obnocious know-it-all asshole.
Kimmitt
“Obnoxious.”
Thanks for spelling my name correctly.
Kimmitt
Dorian: please read my post more closely; one need only be one of the adjectives I described to be a member of the coalition.
I grant that my invective has been somewhat strong here, but the enormous insult to Dr. King associated with claiming that he would be a member of the Republican Party requires strong language. Simply put, Dr. King would not be associated with any Party that either built or tolerated the extrajudicial detention facilities at Guantanamo* — and would thus reject first the Republican and then the Democratic Parties out of hand.
*among the dozens of civil rights abuses associated with the War on Terror
John Cole
King was rather closeley associated with many members of the Democratic party, which detained hundreds of thousands of innocents during WWII.
Next.
Kimmitt
What’s more, the Democratic Party was historically the Party of slaveholders, so King was in actuality in favor of slavery!
Next.
John Cole
Exactly- it is your simplism we aremocking here Kimmitt.
Or shall we run through how every Republican is a “cheap labor conservative, a jingoist, a homophobe, a racist, or an antipoor ideologue.”
Kimmitt
That describes the many Republicans I’ve known; the homophobia is near-universal, but the rest of them show up in various amounts.
Terry
Kimmitt proves with each successive post that he is still nutier than a fruitcake.
Slartibartfast
I can’t recall anymore why I ever thought you were intelligent and worthy of engaging in conversation, Kimmitt. You must have earned those sentiments at some point, but all I can recall right now is you being a self-righteous prick who can’t seem to refrain from making silly generalizations.
Kimmitt
I’m sorry; I can’t hear you over the sound of little boys being raped in American prisons.
Slartibartfast
Sorry, I didn’t realize you were in prison.
Kimmitt
It, you know, carries.
Gary Farber
I’m hesitant to contribute to a thread that has so many people contributing at such a thoughtful level, never descending to personal characterization, which would, of course, make those involved look foolish, but I do wonder what, when John notes that”the rank and file of the NAACP […] do not deserve a visit from the President” makes of the mere fact that the President, and the Republican Party, would still have a great triumph if they got as many as ten whole percent of the self-identified “black” vote. How does one explain this, precisely? And what does one make of President Reagan having chosen Philadelphia, Mississippi to start his campaign in 1980, declaring himself for “state’s rights”? (If anyone doesn’t know what previously happened there, or who Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, were, that’s the relevant problem, isn’t it?) (Mind, I’m quite a partisan, myself, for “state’s rights,” when it actually means simply that, and isn’t a set of historic code words.)
Dorian
Kimmitt,
You said:
Kimmitt
Like I said.
Dorian
Kimmitt,
Ah
Slartibartfast
I’ve never had any “frighteningly gay” friends. I’m trying to come up with what would be “frighteningly gay”, and failing. Could be lack of imagination on my part, though.
Kimmitt
I think it gets “frightening” when they want to hold hands in public and adopt kids.
Toren
Kimmitt has jumped the shark.
Dorian
Slart
Dean
Toren:
Sorry, but I thought Kimmitt jumped the shark about a year ago. I think he’s been happily playing in the shark tank ever since.
Slartibartfast
“Jumped the shark” implies that it was voluntary, and that he could stop. I’ve seen no evidence for either condition.
Kimmitt
So remind me — what precisely was the Party breakdown on the Hate Amendment again?
SDN
Kimmitt, when a Hate Amendment gets introduced I’m sure you’ll author it.
As for Mr. Farber: At Philadelphia MS, three civil rights workers, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, who were in MS to register black Americans to vote, were assassinated by white supremacists organized as the Ku Klux Klan. (It’s unknown whether Senator Byrd was in command or aware of the operation.) If you believe that those events have anything to do with the modern day Republican Party, then the only question left is when to start the next Civil War, because the time for debate is OVER!
Kimmitt
“If you believe that those events have anything to do with the modern day Republican Party,”
Then why, precisely, did Ronald Reagan start his Presidential campaign?
“If you believe that those events have anything to do with the modern day Republican Party, then the only question left is when to start the next Civil War, because the time for debate is OVER!”
How’s Thursday for you?
Raging Dave
Kimmett, I want to thank you for reminding me just how vile, putrid, intolerant, insane, and worthless the mainstream Democrats are these days. I don’t think I’ve seen such a pile of rancid dog drippings in a while.
Every time I start to think that there are some worthwhile people on the Left, all I have to do is read anything you’ve written in the past year to remind myself that your side is damn near worthless.
Kimmitt
After checking out your website, I feel quite confident in saying that if you saw something worthwhile in what I was saying, I would be doing something very wrong.
Raging Dave
Indeed. Using logic, thinking for yourself, and actually recognising facts are rather harmful if you’re a die-hard liberal. Those who DO use logic, think for themselves, and recongnise facts usually end up being conservative.
Maybe in a few years, I’ll be able to read your tripe without gagging. Until then, have fun.
Kimmitt
“Using logic, thinking for yourself, and actually recognising facts are rather harmful if you’re a die-hard liberal.”
You’ve GOT to be kidding me.
“If it had been up to Kerry, we wouldn’t have had enough of a military to take over downtown Dallas, let alone Iraq.”
“whatever “frog-marched” means. I think it means prancing frantically in the opposite direction from armed Germans, while soiling yourself and cursing in French.”
“The Vietnam memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him.”
“[Kerry] has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam” (I missed the part where Kerry commanded a vessel of war against the forces of the United States.)
And that’s just from the first half-dozen posts. Your site is the usual wacko nutjob frothing which has only the vaguest relationship to reality.
“Those who DO use logic, think for themselves, and recongnise facts usually end up being conservative.”
Well, that explains the enormous outpouring of support of Nobel Prizewinners for Bush. Oh, wait.
Look, if you’re going to trade in insulting sterotypes, try to keep to the “pro-Commie” or “limp-wristed” type. This whole “Thinking and/or educated people lean Conservative” thing is pathetic on its face and sadder the more you look at it.
Kimmitt
Just a quick link to the story which I meant to link to above.
Slartibartfast
Somehow, a great many comments were devoured by the blogdemons. If so, I’m confident that there were demonic stomache-aches as a result.