Bush On Prison Ministry Program: "Everyone Was Black, Of Course"

Think Progress:

In his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush administration Matt Latimer describes a 2008 California GOP fundraiser he attended while working in the White House, where the President gave a speech to donors about his personal struggles with alcoholism. Bush then went on to make racially charged comments about his visit to a prison ministry program.

Read the whole story: Think Progress

Comments

[VegasWolf]

Bush, the former leader of the Republican party, an intellectual god, at least in his own mind.

[emrogers]

Upon Bush visiting an insane asylum - "Everybody was a Republican, of course."

[mapmaker515]

Hey W go to a Federal prison and count how many are Black. BTW good to hear from you again Your
Stupidness.

[260Parkway]

Yep, he's apt to find Scooter Libby in there and he's not Black.

[Harvee Wallbanger]

Nope, he let him out.

[politicaljunkie41910]

I would think that Bush would have all the compassion and empathy in the world for those members of the prison ministry program which appeared to save his life. After all he who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and had the best education money could buy and all the trappings that his family's wealth could afford was still a colossal failure at every thing he touched and a 'hardheaded' drunk by his own admission.

Imagine how much worse off Bush would have been had he been born black and into poverty like those prison inmates; educated in inferior delapidated schools, subject to racial discrimination on the job (if they could find one that paid a decent wage); have your impoverished neighborhood inundated with poor migrant workers who you are pitted against and forced to fight over the leftover scraps; and the constant harrassment brought on by racial profiling in their communities by rogue cops; and finally after succumbing to the likes of alcohol and drug abuse to drown the sorrows of a broken spirit, the victims of racist drug laws and prison sentencing which insure that you and your family will never recover 'in this lifetime'.

[PhillyQuaker]

Maybe the rest of the spiritually inclined inmates were Quakers and holding individual meetings for worship in their cells.

[Paulo1]

Now if Obama would just have grown a spine and prosecuted all of the illegal activity done under Bush/Cheney we would certainly not be able to make that statement about it being "all black of course"

[democracy7]

Sorry, I will try to explain it to you one more time. It is not Obama's job to persecute the former suspected administration( all the names are too many to list), it is the job of the Department of Justice. IE Eric Holder.

[scorpioleidy]

This apple sure didn't fall far from the tree! Remember his mom's comments after Katrina?

[mmgbizgirl]

Yeah we know Texas will jail a black person for sneezing.

[dfranz]

And you are the least capable president in the history of the United States, of course.

[tantrictim]

For all of President George Bush’s incompetence the one thing he hasn’t been accused of screwing up the last 8 years is his own sobriety. It looks like now he can cross that off the list too.

Bush was caught in this photograph at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit drinking a Pisco Sour, the very alcoholic national drink of Peru. Maybe he accepted the beverage trying to avoid an international incident like the time his dad threw up at a state dinner in Japan.

Or maybe he didn’t realize what it was until it was already in his mouth.. you know how he feels about pulling out. Most likely though President Push still hasn’t realized what he drank; after all his amazing powers of perception is what got our economy in this mess in the first place.

http://www.celebslap.com/george-bush-caught-drinking-alcohol/

[OldTart]

Where have you been? There were widely circulated rumors of his drinking while in the White House. And I couldn't blame him, to be honest, but that's not the point. I can't imagine a situation worse than the one he let his hubris get him into: being POTUS, a job for which he was never suited but for which he was selected, I have no doubt, by his VP and the Neocons. I'm torn by feeling almost sorry for him and being angrier than I've ever been with anyone in my life.

[DannyGee]

widely circulated rumors

Which, of course, have never been substantiated.

[hulagirrrl]

Don't be angy, especially not with the ones in your life. He is a drunk, I believe that in a heart beat. So what, and his way of thinking about how only black people are in prison, we won't change that. The suck that type of thinking in while nursing on Mama. We can only change our little world first, and treat everybody with the respect and dignity that they deserve. F... Bushie and the horse he came in on...........

[amyhasopinions]

"He said he went to see a prison ministry program, noting that ‘everyone was black, of course.” All eyes turned in search of the sole African American in the audience of donors. They wanted to see if he was offended."

Stuff like this happens on TV, on the radio, in the grocery store, etc. all the time to my husband. My husband usually shakes his head and goes, "White people." People just don't get they're doing it, they're so insulated. Which is one reason why Bush was so scary, I always thought. He was a leader of the free world, and his worldview always seemed so very, very one-sided.

A teacher friend and I were talking today about an all white private school she once worked at in rural Georgia. They were sweet kids, she said, but they were just so unaware of the world around them. One day one of her 5th grade girls came in and said, "Guess what I saw at McDonald's last night Ms. P! A BLACK guy!" Because black people were so rare in her world, it was just astonishing to this child that she'd run into one at her local McDonald's.

It's still out there. You can see it in some of the commentaries on this website--people mean well, but they really don't get it.

[Alarmist]

He was making an observation. However, what I find more interesting than the fact that he found everyone to be black, was " All eyes turned in search of the sole African American in the audience of donors. They wanted to see if he was offended."

There was only one Black person in the audience. Wow.

[walleymr]

not even a purple one? orange? yellow?

[emrogers]

noop - nary a one.

[graceland9]

I can't think of a single thing I agree with that Bush has said, and I doubt that there has been a worse president in American history.

That being said, I am sick of these "Tell-all" books coming out of Washington. I don't like them about the Kennedys, about the Obamas, about the Clintons - and, to be fair - I don't like them about Bush either.

Another "bestseller" that will be in the 2$ bin in six months.

[hulagirrrl]

Yes, you are right. The books are a betrayal to me. If I work for someone, I do not think of making money one day talking about this person. That is disloyal.

[progressivegreg]

Confirmation, now it's official shrub sees the world in black and white!