Bush Doesn't Care About Black People: Kanye West Colbert King

Poor Condoleezza Rice can try to say that Bush isn't a racist, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time, according to Post columnist Colbert King:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has gamely tried to defend her boss against charges that the haphazard federal response to Hurricane Katrina's victims was due to the fact that most of them were black and poor. Rice is out of her depth on this one. She can say all she wants that it is not within George W. Bush to "have left people unattended on the basis of race," but her words won't rescue him from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's abysmal performance. Neither will photo ops with administration heavy hitters and storm victims.

The relief efforts speak for themselves....

How to recover?

Bush should put someone on the ground who can marshal and oversee the deployment of all available federal resources, including the new relief money....

Moreover, the federal government's reconstruction and resettlement czar must not be afraid to be in the company of frustrated and angry black people. Let me repeat: must not be afraid to be in the company of frustrated and angry black people. That requirement alone eliminates most of Bush's political appointees.

What better person than Marc Morial, the former two-term mayor of New Orleans and current president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League? My saying this may be the kiss of death, but I shall plow on.

You plow your row, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten plows his. The New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 18:

On any list of former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial's closest associates, few names rank higher than businessman Stan "Pampy" Barré.

And so it's easy to understand why Thursday's revelation that Barré and three others had been indicted on charges of skimming more than $1 million from a City Hall contract would prompt the question: Will Morial be hit with shrapnel from the political bombshell?...

The indictments, the first major development in a years-long federal investigation into Morial-era business dealings, also target a top official in the former mayor's administration, Kerry DeCay, the city's former property management director....

It's important to note that Morial, who moved to New York City two years ago to head the National Urban League, is not implicated in the elaborate kickback scheme outlined by federal prosecutors in the 37-page indictment.

But with acting U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's assertion that the probe is far from over, speculation in political circles Friday focused on how high up the food chain the allegations of criminal wrongdoing might reach.

I have no idea if Morial is guilty of anything, and good men are betrayed by bad ones.

But this is King's idea of Mr. Recovery? You gotta bring more game than being able to handle all those scary angry black people.

Comments

[Jacki Whitford]

While I agree with Mr. King's article, he is totally forgetting something. Our President is "hard headed". He will not budge on any choice he makes for a position no matter how wrong the nominee may be. He will push the Chosen One down the nation's throat and that of Congress until they are appointed, or some catastrophe happens and he has to quickly do an about face. And if he makes a mistake and anyone complains, he will have has father, mother and wife defend him in the media. What's wrong with this picture?

We have lost an enormous piece of our history to toxic waters, and a large part of our community which are scattered to the far corners of America. To heal our nation, and those who survived, we need to place just as much emphasis in rebuilding the South (communities and jobs to those who are impacted first!) as we are putting into rebuilding Iraq.