New Orleans - Call it a fear, a phobia, but not racism. George W. Bush is simply frightened by black people. In his first visit to New Orleans, he never got closer than five hundred feet to any people of color, despite working side by side with Condaleeza Rice in the White House. On his second trip, he met New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, but Ray was the sole soul brother in a sea of white faces surrounding the prez. "It's not his fault," said one psychologist. It's irrational. He can't help it."
A quick search of over 500 Google News, and Yahoo! News images using keywords "Bush" and "New Orleans" didn't reveal a SINGLE photo of Bush taken with a single African American, even in the background, except for a stroll with Roy Nagin, with plenty of Secret Service men nearby.
"He probably had a negative childhood experience," said political consultant Steve Queen. "Maybe he played cards with some neighborhood kids, and one of them played the race card on him. Or yelled "boo!" and scared him. It may have cost him his bicycle, or his pride. They may have inadvertently damaged the kid for life."
The possibility that blacks, mostly Democrats, who were treated like dogs following hurricane Katrina might heckle or even boo Bush, is, apparently, too much for him to risk.
According to one Bush supporter reportedly close to Karl Rove, the White House political chief, said the president did not and meet with black victims on his first trip because he knew that White House officials were "scared to death" of the President's possible reaction. So scared of black folks is Bush that he had to let Colin Powell go even after Powell proved a willingness to lie for his President in front of the UN.
"If I'm Karl, amd I'm trying to spin an image of a caring, can-do President, do I want the visual of black people hollering at the president, and him cowering like a frightened schoolboy?" said the supporter, who spoke anonymously since Rove is a vindictive, mean man who won't hesitate to seek revenge on anyone who crosses him, including CIA agent Valerie Plame's husband Joseph Wilson."
"Melanin therapy" has been suggested for President Bush, in which tanning and skin coloring would be gradually applied until he too was "one of them," at which point he might realize, "We're all Americans, and we're all humans, regardless of race or skin color."
