"Bush Speech Gave Race Hustlers Fresh Ammo"
Tags: george bushMy sentiments more or less. From David Limbaugh:
Some conservatives are concerned with President Bush's New Orleans speech because of the unlimited federal spending it seemed to promise, but I was far more concerned with his arguable vindication of the wrongheaded notion that racial discrimination is responsible for the disproportionate impact of the flooding on blacks…
But I don't see any silver lining in the president's seeming adoption of the Jesse Jackson school of thought concerning Katrina's racist component. The president said: "As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."
…Either way, his injection of race into the speech is troubling if for no other reason than it gives ammunition and a degree of legitimacy to the race-hustlers' unconscionable ploy to blame delays or inadequacies in the federal response on the administration's alleged racial prejudice against blacks.
I'm not talking about the political downside to Republicans in the president's remarks, but the way others will use those remarks to further divide and alienate the races against each other.
After close to $7 trillion has been spent on the war on poverty, how can anyone seriously argue that liberal solutions have any remote prospect of eradicating poverty or its often-disproportionate effects on blacks?
Isn't it time we consider other possible contributing causes, such as cultural ones? It's hardly an original idea that illegitimacy leads to poverty, and there are very high rates of illegitimacy among blacks in New Orleans. Is that because of too little federal attention or money dedicated to programs designed to lift up the poor? Or too much?
As long as liberals own the vocabulary of compassion in this country, I suppose many are too afraid of being branded racist for saying that simply throwing money at poverty is not going to make a dint in it. Even less likely are they to say that other factors may be contributing to black poverty as well - including the perpetuation of the sinister and patronizing idea that blacks simply can't lift themselves up without the white man's largesse…
See also Obama shows folly of “compassionate conservatism” and “The Katrina Speech Bush Should Have Given”.
