Words. For Your Consideration...
"It is possible that the most stunning story of the past week is not the brutal midterm loss suffered by the Democrats, but the release of former President George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, and his attendant book-promoting pubic appearances.
Sitting with NBC’s Matt Lauer President Bush breezily defended his use of water boarding torture, explaining that he relied on the judgment government attorneys who advised him the practice was legal. He also told Oprah he was “sick” about not discovering weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but he went onto confidently assert that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. But for me the jaw-dropping, headline-making revelation of this week is President Bush’s assertion that the low point of his presidency came when 33-year-old, hip-hop artist Kanye West went off-script during a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, looked into the camera and asserted, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
...I think there is a lesson in the President’s anxiety about having been labeled racist. It is a lesson about America’s relationship to race and racism and one that might help us better understand our own history, motivations, anxieties, and political choices.
...Empirically, racism may be as American as apple pie, but morally, ethically, and philosophically racism is a betrayal of America. In this sense, when Kanye West pointed to the Bush administration’s non-response as an act of racism, he called Bush a traitor..."
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