Bush not racist, but he panders to those who are

[Thom Little]

By Cynthia Tucker
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005


Among black Americans, President Bush's approval ratings are hovering near the negatives. So it probably won't make much difference to black voters that the president's appointees at the U.S. Justice Department approved a racially charged voter ID law that was the brainchild of Georgia Republicans. Black Americans have already written off the White House.

But the machinations at Justice serve as a reminder that the president's relationship with his black constituents was strained and dysfunctional long before his administration's languid response to Hurricane Katrina sealed that estrangement once and for all. No matter that Bush himself is an unlikely bigot — no matter that he has appointed Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice to the highest positions black Americans have ever held in a presidential administration — the president has never been popular among black people.

Bush could have done more to overcome the GOP's 40-year history as the party of Barry Goldwater, who ran for president in 1964 on a states' rights platform that defended Southern segregation. Indeed, Bush made some gains among black voters, mostly through his work with conservative black ministers. Given that black voters tend to be social conservatives — supportive of the death penalty and suspicious of abortion rights, for example — you'd think that Bush would be holding his own with them.

But the president has never been willing to rein in the racists in his ranks. That's because he needs them: Their dirty work helps to ensure GOP victories. Sure, the president may not be a bigot, but if you stand on bigots' shoulders, what does that make you?




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