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.