Inside Politics

Paige’s message

“I have a message for the NAACP’s Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, who have accused black conservatives of being the ‘puppets’ of white people, unable to think for ourselves: You do not own, and you are not the arbiters of, African-American authenticity,” Education Secretary Rod Paige said yesterday in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

“I am a lifelong member of the NAACP. I have great respect for the organization. Its historical leaders, all visionary thinkers, have been responsible for helping to advance the struggle of African Americans over the past century, making our nation a more equitable and race-blind society. Sadly, the current NAACP leadership has managed to take a proud, effective organization in a totally new direction: naked partisan politics, pure and simple,” Mr. Paige said.

“In particular, Mr. Bond and Mr. Mfume have done a great disservice to our organization, and to the founders of the civil rights movement, with their hateful and untruthful rhetoric about Republicans and President Bush. How ironic that they would direct this vitriol at a president who has appointed more African Americans to high-profile posts, has committed more funds to fight AIDS in Africa, has championed minority homeownership, and has supported more trade and aid for African and Caribbean nations than any other administration.”

Reporting rumors

“Democrats who want John Kerry to be elected spend a lot their time these days fascinated and frightened by the prospect that President Bush will replace Vice President Cheney on the ticket,” ABC’s The Note, a daily roundup written by the network’s political team, said yesterday at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html.

“Acknowledging that it all may be inside the Beltway clamor, the New York Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller looks at a new ‘rumor’ in Washington that ‘Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush.’

“How the talented Ms. Bumiller gets just above the front-page fold of her paper today with a story that includes the word ‘rumor’ in the headline is really beyond us,” The Note said.

“Look — the only reason to replace Mr. Cheney is if the calculus is made that doing so would increase the chances of Bush re-election.

“And that calculation could NEVER be made precisely, since removing him would bring on at least some amount of base unhappiness (particularly if he were replaced by a moderate); some accusations of implicit concession of error on Iraq and other policies; and some charges of political cravenness.

“Bumiller’s story has some clever suggestions that Republicans are a part of a three-way conversation on this, but for the most part, this is a Democrat-and-media dialogue.”

Attack boomerangs

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Mr. Bush the authority to go to war, Reuters news agency reports, citing aides to Mr. Kerry.

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