Some people disagree with Colin Powell that the failure of the federal emergency response in New Orleans “wasn’t a racial thing.” If it were really about poverty, as Bush defenders claim, then his administration wouldn’t spend so much time cleaning up his record on blacks, says the Palm Beach Post.

Poverty doesn’t polarize in the same vocal, fearful manner that race does…

If you were offended by Kanye West’s comments, you should be more offended by President Bush’s record.

The unending cluelessness in this administration is getting old.

President Bush so wanted minority voters to believe that his administration “is working very well for them” that a report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was changed last year to downplay that ethnic and racial “disparities are pervasive in our health-care system.”

Because a racial profiling report by the Justice Department demonstrated that, in traffic stops, things too often are not “working very well for them,” the report was ordered to be whitewashed. A supervisor who objected recently was fired.

President Bush’s meddling with the Head Start preschool program threatens to leave thousands of poor, black children struggling to catch up. No Child Left Behind, his underfinanced genius of a PR scheme, annually leaves thousands of black children behind academically.

He so values the equity the Voting Rights Act of 1965 offered African-Americans and others that he’s made no commitment to extend and strengthen the provisions that expire in 2007. Even though unemployment rates for African-Americans are consistently almost double the rates for white Americans, and black households had the lowest median income in 2004 ($30,134) among all race groups, and 72 percent of white Americans own homes vs. only 48 percent of African-Americans, President Bush believes that the work force and the educational system are working so well that they don’t need affirmative action.

Bush is not only predisposed to racism but his policies reflect the qualities we have seen over and over this summer, from the famous, “I have to get on with my life” line regarding Cindy Sheehan to the classic, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” in New Orleans.

This guy doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get anything outside of his privileged circumstances and narrow life perspective (uncluttered as it is with insights from newspapers or books). He chooses faith over facts, unshakably certain that his view is the only view. Who knew levees could break? Who knew wetlands matter? Who thought terrorists could fly planes as weapons? Who thought anyone would object to leaving thousands of poor blacks treading water with nothing for three or four days? The unending cluelessness in this administration is getting old.

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