Bush skips NAACP speech

New York Daily News: You've been maligned as appealing to the "underside of American culture." You and your political party "preach racial neutrality and practice racial division." Your "idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side."
You have "selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."
You have led your nation into a "war of occupation" that is based on "the crass obstruction of the truth." Oh, and don't forget, you "want to write bigotry back into the Constitution."
Let's face it, folks: If the chairman of an organization used his platform to castigate you with that vehemence, would you make nice-nice? Not likely. Which is why President Bush is this week conspicuous by his absence from the NAACP convention in Philadelphia.
Why curry favor?
His foes say he has "dissed" the members and, by extension, all blacks. Which is a libel. He is merely refusing to demean himself with cheap favor-currying.
The quotes above come from speeches by NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, including an address to the convention Sunday. Bond has hardly been ratcheting down the rhetoric and is not alone among the NAACP hierarchy in being highly critical of the president. He has every right to say, for example, that he was afraid Bush would "announce he was going to repeal the 14th Amendment." But Bond & amp; Co. then must recognize that such over-the-top partisanship moves the NAACP a long way from the mission of advancing the causes of civil rights and racial equality.
Bond's speech Sunday was nothing less than a call to dump Bush and elect Sen. John Kerry over fundamental disagreements on issues.
And Bush has every right to respond however he wants without being subjected to holier-than-thou dudgeon. You don't demean someone and then expect him to show up at your house with roses.
Said Bush the other day, "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership [of the NAACP] as basically nonexistent." Which is the completely justifiable reason his attendance at its convention is nonexistent.