Bush Meets Blacks Behind Closed Doors

After five years of frosty relations between the White House and the NAACP, the civil rights organization's new president, Bruce S. Gordon, has met with President Bush twice in the past three months -- and at the second meeting, just this week, he brought eight other black leaders with him.

The continued, widespread anger in the African American community about Bush's lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina is certainly one factor in the White House's new outreach effort.

But another factor is Gordon himself, a former Verizon senior executive, who is apparently willing to indulge Bush in his passion for secrecy.

Gordon and his colleagues have spoken in only the most general terms about what transpired during their closed-door meetings with the president.

Doesn't the public deserve to know more? Though eclipsed by the war in Iraq, Bush's response to Katrina and his antipathy towards traditional civil rights causes are two of the bigger stories of his presidency.

And here is a president who is known to avoid dissent in private as much as possible -- and eschew it completely in public -- actually meeting face to face with some of his most indignant critics. Did the leaders give Bush an earful, and how did he respond? We just don't know.

Kelly Brewington writes in the Baltimore Sun: "Some national civil rights leaders say this week's private meeting with President Bush offers hope for an end to frosty relations, but others insist an hourlong talk is no guarantee that the Republican White House will become responsive to their agendas. . . .

"Wednesday's meeting brought together senior White House staff with nine black leaders, including: National Urban League President and Chief Executive Marc Morial; Donna Brazile, a Democratic political consultant; Rep. Melvin Watt, a North Carolina Democrat and head of the Congressional Black Caucus; and Dorothy Height, president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women. . . .

" 'I think this is going to be helpful for the NAACP and the White House, no doubt about it,' said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat, who did not attend this week's meeting but was involved in conversations leading up to it. . . .

" 'Don't get me wrong, if you put this on the scale of a love relationship, it's not quite dating, let alone engagement or marriage,' Cummings said. 'But I think it's an opportunity to talk. And I think that's probably a good thing.'

"Others argued that little would come of the meeting, saying they doubt any civil rights leader could sway an administration that has not made civil rights a priority."

For instance, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who was not invited to the White House, complained that such an important meeting should not be secretive.