September 13, 2005--"Grab Some Black People"

The NY Times reported—“Gulf Coast Isn’t the Only Thing Left in Tatters; Bush’s Status With Blacks Takes a Hit” (September 12, 2005).

It appears that sending Condi Rice down home to Alabama, to pray and to promise that “Jesus is coming soon,” is not working for the President or Karl Rove. The Pew Research Center reports that two-thirds of African-Americans believe the government’s response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina would have been quicker if most of the victims had been white. Seventy-seven percent of whites felt otherwise. (No surprise, recall the reaction to the OJ verdict.)

Laura Bush next leaped to the President’s defense, saying, “I think all of these remarks were disgusting.” (Mother-in law Bush, however, had a different view. When visiting the Katrina refugees in the Houston Astrodome, she said that since the evacuees were “underprivileged” living in the Astrodome turned out to be an improvement in their lives.)

Beyond Laura and Barbara and Condi, who else did the White House reach out to to mobilize its spin? Again, the Times reports that behind the scenes there has been lots of confusion and scrambling. But then one of the President’s most prominent black supporters came to the rescue. He called the White House to say that they needed to get a different message, different images into circulation. Off the record he told the Times that he advised the White House that the next time the President visits New Orleans he should “grab some black people who look like they might be preachers” and take them along.

Never one not to take good advice, the very next time POTUS went down there, by his side was the conservative African-American television evangelist and founder of the 30,000 member megachurch in Dallas, the Bishop Jakes.