In 2000, the NAACP ran the most ugly, hateful and false ad in the history of presidential elections: a TV ad with a voiceover from James Byrd's daughter excoriating candidate Bush for not supporting hate crime legislation while governor of Texas and showing a reenactment of Byrd's death by being dragged while chained to a pick-up truck in Jasper, Texas. The implication: because racist Bush doesn't support hate crime laws, this is what happens.
Bush's response on the campaign trail was the right one: what would a hate crime law do that the current law already does not? Hate crime legislation is supposed to increase punishment for racist/anti-____ beliefs that motivate a crime against a member of the group you "hate" (I'm not going into the merits of it here). But, of the three killers of James Byrd, two are on death row and one is imprisoned for life (my recollection is that he turned state's evidence in exchange for no death penalty). And in Texas, death row sitters will be executed. So what else could you want?
Bush has also been accused of a Confederate nostalgist, had his judicial nominees equated to the Taliban, and libeled as a Jim Crow supporter by Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, the chairman and president of the NAACP. Thus, it is no shock that he declined an invitation to speak at the NAACP convention in Philly last weekend. This piece from Deroy Murdock will set that record straight.
Is Bush anti-black? That claim would be ridiculous on its face. After all, his meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus ran over-time and was friendly; he has spoken to the National Urban League, black churches and also held a ceremony celebrating the 40-year anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The NAACP has lost its bearings. From one of the best civil rights institutions with an unimpeachable moral mission, it has become just another grievance mill for a segment of the populace.
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