“Bush is scheduled to outline his “urban agenda” at 11:15 a.m. [today] at the annual conference of the National Urban League.”
- from Reuters: “Bush, Democrat Contenders Want Black Votes”

“Since the days of Warren G. Harding, presidents have met at the White House with leaders of the NAACP. Not President Bush — at least not yet. More than halfway through his presidency, Bush has yet to receive the nation’s oldest civil rights group or the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights, an umbrella organization.”
-from CNN: “NAACP Still Trying to Get Meeting with Bush”

“It’s a simple strategy,” said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. “The President is for the advancement of colored people, and the best way to make that happen is for them to listen to people who have already advanced - to have the President listening to the unadvanced is a backwards approach.”

According to McClellan, the White House’s strategy towards garnering the black vote in 2004 is an extrapolation of Donald Rumsfeld’s celebrated new approach to modern warfare. “Get in and get out. Use overwhelming force and leave a small footprint.”

In some ways, the President’s shock-and-awe approach has worked. “We’re definitely shocked,” said NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, “and his continued refusal to even meet with us while pursuing the black vote… well, that does inspire a certain kind of awe.”

Mfume went on to complain that the major media outlets have abetted the President in keeping black Americans’ concerns out of the public eye. “It’s almost impossible to get our concerns aired in print,” he said, “For example -”

But McClellan says that President Bush’s compassionate conservative approach to African American concerns is working. “Black people know that the President feels their pain - he just doesn’t want to hear about it all the time. I think black people understand that and respect it. If they don’t, we certainly haven’t heard anything about it.”