Quote:
|
Originally Posted by shinerbock
I think you make some very good points. My only contention regards the situation the NAACP has put him in. Unfortunately we are at the point in this political era where special interests don't actually represent the people they claim to. Now I'm sure the NAACP represents issues that black Americans care about, but they are not simply a concerned group of citizens. The same is true of any special interest group, teachers or blue collar unions, corporations, religious groups, etc...I feel the President has an obligation to answer to the people, as his constituents. However, I DO NOT feel that the President has to answer to special interest groups which represent much more than just a group of like minded people. Thus, I think when groups try and dictate the actions of the President, be it the NAACP or the Christian Coalition, I think it is a great disrespect to the office.
|
Can you claify some things here.... Is the NAACP a "special interest that doesn't actually represent the people they claim to"? And if so, then who, exactly do they represent? What or who is this wider circle you apparently think the NAACP represents that the president need not address? And if he need not address them, then what "situation" have they really put him in?
5.5 years into an administration, there’s nothing new George Bush, or any president for that matter, can tell the NAACP about his vision vis-a-via black people. He has a record, from which people can make their own determinations about his “vision.”
Bush's speech appearance is simply "political stagecraft" for both he and the NAACP. Bush wants to appear sensitive and inclusive going into what appear to be tough midterm elections for his party. Bruce Gordon, new NAACP CEO, wants to be seen as a different type of leader; more pragmatic, inclusive, effective, less vitriolic in his approach. So each needs this "performance" for different reasons.
As to the reference in earlier posts to the heat the Bush admin. takes over Katrina, it's because a lot of people feel the federal gov'ts mishandling was bigger. No one is absolving the Blanco and Nagin administrations for their culpability, but no American city could reasonably be expected to handle a disaster of that magnitude. To have the federal government unprepared to mobilize 4 days into a disaster they saw coming three days before it hit is still hard to understand, and we're almost a year after the fact.