NAACP Finally Welcome's Bush

Thanks to a leadership change in the NAACP, George W. Bush was finally greeted with a warm welcome when he spoke to members of The NAACP this week. He had never spoke to the group in his entire presidency, partly because when he spoke the last time in July of 2000, he recieved scattered applause when he took the stage. Then he was slapped in the face by James Bond, after Bush appointed 3 black people to his Cabinet, hosted the All Democratic Black Caucus in his Cabinet Room, and other things. Bond said about Bush, "He has appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing. And he has chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."

Finally, the new leader of the NAACP, Bruce S. Gordon, has sent a warm invitation to teh president. Even after this, as this report says about Bond, 'In a speech to the convention Sunday, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond blasted the war in Iraq and attacks on voting rights even as he urged Bush to attend the gathering. “This year the convention has come to the president and we hope and pray he is coming to us,” Bond said.'

Oh, I almost forgot. There was an ad ran by the NAACP in the 200 campaign giving Bush the blame as governor (not to the judge presiding over the case) for not using hate crime laws in a brutal case:
"There is a history of bad blood between Bush and the NAACP. During the 2000 presidential campaign, the NAACP's National Voter Fund ran a television ad against Bush. It featured the daughter of James Byrd, a black man dragged to death by three white men in a pickup truck, blaming Bush for refusing her pleas for a hate-crime law when he was Texas governor."