A Stupid Question...
I saw a post this morning on Freerepublic.com that had a title like: "If the GOP wants Black Votes, why don't they go on BET?"

I'll give ya a whole slew of answers:
1. Why should GWB go on BET? If you've ever watched some of BET's programming you'll find it to be mostly immature, a place where standard english is not spoken, where white people are ridiculed on a minute-by-minute basis. If I was GWB, I wouldn't go anywhere NEAR BET because it sends the wrong message. That message is: idiocy will be rewarded. BET is the closest thing we have to Klan-based television in this country and it's ironic because the race-baters are all black. You would think the victims of racism would be more circumspect. I guess not.

2. The NAACP ran a commercial in 2000 that stated, unequivocably, that GWB's failure to sign "Hate Crimes Legislation" was almost like lynching James Byrd all over again. You remember James Byrd? He was the black man in Texas who was assaulted by a bunch of rednecks, chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to his death. Never once did it occur to anyone pushing "Hate Crimes" laws that capital murder gets you a lethal injection in Texas.
The NAACP is supposed to be the premier "black leadership" forum in the country, and they not only engage in this kind of idiocy, they pay for it.

3. GWB will get that 9-10% of the black vote no matter what he does, short of an economic catastrophe. This 9-10% represents the black population that not only shares conservative values, but also has somethign to keep: their homes, their jobs, and their bank accounts. In short, they're everything other blacks despise about whites: educated, employed, intelligent, and living in the suburbs. Exposing himself to a potential gaff infront of an audience that woudl do whatever was necessary to provike one if they had to, is not smart politics. Better to deal with the Latinos who, at least, largely share Conservative values.

4. Since the message Bush would deliver: self-respect, self-responsibility, self-help, conservative values of work, faith and perserverance, do not resonate in that portion of the electorate that is used to being mollycoddled and having their failures excused automaticall, he has nothing to say to them anyway. What they want to hear is what they might expect to receive personally from a Bush presidency, not what they will hear: Government is not your salvation and I am not going to hand you anything at all. Today's African-American (and just how many of them can even spell Africa, by the way, let alone ever been there) is conditioned as a reflex action to constantly have a hand out, and then riot when he hasn't been bribed sufficiently.

5. But, many will say, it would show that he "cares". If caring was all it took to eliminate the problems of perpetual poverty amongst the black population, it would have disappeared. If caring could prevent the abrotion of 1 in 3 black children that takes place every year, then blacks wouldn't be on the road to statistical insignifigance the way they are now. If caring solved anything there wouldn't be 2 million black men in jail. The point is this: even if he showed he "cared" would anything actually change? Answer: No. Reason: He's not the cause of your problems, nor is he the solution. YOU are. All it requires, to a large degree, is your effort. But you don't want to hear that, do you? So, if he goes to show he "cares" and then you don't like the message (guarenteed), did it make any difference?

Finally, Perhaps, an Answer...
Recently i was complaining about the fact that I get the local newspaper delivered to me when I never asked for it. I also mentioned the fact that nobody ever comes around to get paid for it either. I kind of wondered if this was just someone with no brain in their head, a paper-trowing automaton, if you will, just a mistake, or if I had stepped into the Twilight Zone.

Leave it to John Derbyshire (NationalReview.com) to provide the answer for me! Derb's good for those sorts of things. Turns out, he too receives newspapers he never asked for nor pays for. Derb did some digging and found out that newspapers (allegedly) do this a sa way to boost circulation numbers -- i.e. they print more papers than neccessary and distribute the extras. And why do they do this? Boosting the circulation number ups the price advertisers must pay to put an ad in the paper! So, does it matter that the Charlotte Observer is sending me papers I'm not paying for? Heck no, because Wal-Mart is paying more for advertising!

Of course, it never entered anyone's head that if Wal-Mart pays more for advertising, then it stands to reason that I must pay more for goods at Wal-Mart, did it? If, and I say, if, the Charlotte Observer is engaged in such shennanigans, then shame on them. In fact, I think I just might call them on it.

I'll give you an update later on.