The buzz has already started about the release of former president George W. Bush memoir, Decision Points, November 9. Crown Publishers in its pre-release hype promises that Bush will talk about the 14 decisions that he regarded as the most critical during his contentious two terms in office. The two decisions that have already garnered attention are to no surprise what he said and did during and after the 9/11 attacks that changed the course of law, public policy and warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan and the anti-terrorism battle.
The second was Hurricane Katrina and like 9/11 what Bush did and didn’t do when the hurricane savaged New Orleans and the Gulf. Kanye West gave the answer that grabbed media attention, got the majority of African-American heads nodding in agreement, and almost certainly stuck in the craw of Bush and White House officials.
WATCH PRESIDENT BUSH DISCUSS KANYE’S REMARKS HERE:
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West’s line, in case you forgot, was that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” It took five years and a direct question from NBC’s Matt Lauer about West’s quip to get a response from Bush. And he was emphatic: “I didn’t appreciate it then. I don’t appreciate it now. It’s one thing to say, ‘I don’t appreciate the way he’s handled his business.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘This man’s a racist.’ I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency.
There has previously been no record of Bush ever directly responding to West’s damning indictment, which branded Bush’s initial comatose response to the Katrina suffering as at best racially disinterested. At its worst, Kanye’s critique implied that Bush was a bigot and his alleged racial animus was enough to explain why he did not immediately send in the full might of the federal relief armada to help the mostly poor, black residents of the region that bore the brunt of the horror of the storm.
It was of course, easy for the legion of Bush critics, especially blacks, to think that Bush’s slow, and tepid reaction had a racial tinge to it. Bush had repeatedly snubbed the NAACP, and civil rights leaders, backed the legal challenge to affirmative action, assailed civil liberties protections in his Patriot Act, and nominated a pack of borderline-racially suspect, ultra conservative Supreme Court and federal judges.
Bush defenders quickly countered with Bush’s appointments of Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell to top administration positions, massive aid increase to fight AIDS and disease in Africa, and consistent support for minority business and black college funding to prove that Bush was not a racist. But that couldn’t wash away West’s implication that Bush was indifferent towards blacks.
There is no evidence that Bush, unlike Richard Nixon, was personally bigoted, and he was right to resent being called racist. He never publicly or privately uttered any anti-black quips, cracks, remarks or gaffes. There were plenty of them on Nixon’s released White House tapes. And from those that know him, worked closely with him, and that includes especially Condi Rice, Bush seemed to have at least a personal sensitivity toward African-Americans. But Bush was a doctrinaire conservative, who never wavered from his conservative principles, or his philosophy of how government should work: rely as little on it as possible, and stress the private sector as the best equipped to handle economic problems, even catastrophes.
Katrina taught Bush the bitter lesson that the federal government not only has a role but the responsibility to be the first and greatest responder to a major crisis that involves massive suffering, physical damage and loss of life. It would be nice to hear Bush admit that he learned that lesson from Katrina, and that the colossal blunder that he made in not responding with both guns blazing to the crisis, should never have happened and to warn other officials never to make the same mistake that he made.
The tragedy is that it took West’s racial dig at Bush over Katrina to shame him and the nation about the response. Crown Publishers says Mr. Bush “writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes.” Let’s see if Bush acknowledges that West at least made him think about one of his greatest flaws and failures of his administration, namely his initial Katrina failure. That goes beyond simply expressing his personal disgust at being called a racist. I’m not optimistic that’s in the cards in Decision Points.