There's an interesting detail to this apparent snubbing of US Secretary of Education Rod Paige:
The Ohio NAACP withdrew its invitation to U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige, an outspoken critic of the group's national leadership, to speak at its weekend convention. Paige, who was initially invited three weeks ago to discuss the No Child Left Behind program, was cut from the program at the request of the national NAACP, Ohio NAACP President Sybil Edwards-McNabb said Thursday.
The snub is the latest salvo in a feud between President Bush's administration and the civil rights group and is likely to cause a stir at the Ohio chapter's 74th annual convention that opens here today.
Edwards-McNabb said national NAACP leaders told her there was an "imbalance" in her slate of convention speakers. She said she had invited Bush and Sen. John Kerry. Bush agreed to send Paige, she said, but Kerry did not respond.
Emphasis mine, and so what? That's Kerry's loss. Leaving aside the rudeness of disinviting someone to an event of this magnitude, why would it be "unbalanced" to have a representative of President Bush there if his challenger was not there? The programs implemented by the Bush administration have a wide-reaching effect on every schoolchild today, and these programs deserve discussion by those who have had a hand in implementing them - no matter who Bush's challenger is. Just because "the opposition" wasn't there to give their side doesn't mean that Paige wouldn't have been a very appropriate speaker. Certainly, there's plenty he could have discussed that doesn't have anything to do with partisan politics.
But wait, it gets better:
Asked about the role of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is scheduled to speak today, she said Sharpton was a guest of the local NAACP, not a surrogate for Kerry. But Ohio Democrats had a different understanding. Sharpton is "speaking as a representative of the Kerry campaign," said Brendon Cull, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinated Campaign in Ohio. John White, spokesman for the national NAACP, said Thursday he was unaware that Edwards-McNabb had been directed to cut Paige from the lineup.
So, Sharpton is essentially being allowed to speak, with no concern for "balance." And the previous clashes between Paige and the NAACP don't make this situation look any less like a last-minute, high-profile snub:
The war of words between the Bush administration and NAACP has worsened this year. Bush passed on the group's national convention in July after attacks by NAACP leaders Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume on Bush's programs, especially No Child Left Behind.
The same month, Paige responded in the Wall Street Journal to criticism from NAACP leaders that black conservatives like himself were "puppets" of white people. Paige wrote that Bond and Mfume had betrayed their "organization's own origins."
And now they disinvite him. Shabby. Certain observers aren't afraid to connect the dots:
Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said the NAACP's move will backfire.
"It would have been a small blip on the radar screen and now it will be a big story," Bennett said. "The NAACP is supposed to be nonpartisan, but because Rod Paige is George Bush's secretary of education, they disinvite him. Isn't that ludicrous? Democrats can't tolerate any diversity in the Republican Party at all."
Posted by kswygert at September 20, 2004 04:18 PM