BOYS TO MEN:

Departing NAACP Leader Has 'Man-to-Man' Talk With Bush (Michael A. Fletcher, December 22, 2004, Washington Post)

President Bush and outgoing NAACP leader Kweisi Mfume met at the White House yesterday in what Mfume described as a frank, "man-to-man" discussion aimed at fixing the broken relationship between the president and the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization.

Joined by the president's chief political strategist Karl Rove, Bush and Mfume spent much of the nearly 40-minute conversation discussing the strained relationship between Bush and the NAACP. Last summer, Bush pointedly declined an invitation to address the organization's national convention for the fourth consecutive year, calling his relationship with the group "basically nonexistent." The NAACP said Bush was the first president since Warren G. Harding who did not address the civil rights group while in office.

Mfume was invited to the White House last month after announcing his intention to step down after nine years as the NAACP's president and chief executive officer. Speaking to reporters, Mfume was careful to say that the private session -- which he had requested in a letter to Bush -- did not "constitute a meeting" between Bush and the NAACP. [...]

Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, called the meeting an extension of the president's policy of working with people willing to work with him. "The president and Mr. Mfume have had a good relationship in the past," McClellan said, "and this meeting is an opportunity to talk about how we can work together in the future on shared priorities.

Has any White House ever wielded the daggers more skillfully?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 22, 2004 10:11 AM