Catch-up: Bush at NAACP

Wednesday, Bush spoke to the NAACP for the first time in his presidency.

Who wrote this piece of crap speech?

Firstly, Bush constantly re-opens the wounds of racial intolerance, hammering home reminders akin to, "Don't you dare forget you were once slaves." Conjuring imagery of Martin Luther King's assassination and other graphic representations of enslavement (e.g.: "Most of your forefathers didn't come to this land seeking a better life; most came in chains as the property of other people.") was probably not the best way to endear yourself to a group of people whom you even admit is not already in your pocket ("I understand that many African Americans distrust my political party.").

Secondly, and far more important, Bush's speech talked a heck of a lot about "want"s - what we "want to do" about problems - and not so much about "do"s. It's the typical Republican doublespeaking, say-nothing hyperbole that we've been hearing every 2 years since at least 2000. Every topic he touched on - voting rights, education, health care, faith-based initiatives, the estate tax - covered no new ground, nor pointed to any new policy initiatives.

It's just more of the same - a Republican desperately pandering to a group that votes 9-to-1 against them, offering more of the same empty words that they have heard for years from politicians on both sides of the fence.

-R. (have to remember to add this. J. ... where are you, brother?)