Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 April 2004 — Page 7

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2004

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE A7

READERS RESPOND

Don't write Condi's epitaph yet

Coverage was great We really appreciated The Recorder’s recent coverage of the Homeward Bound Walk to Fight Homelessness. I was overwhelmed by your generosity in writing such a wonderful, informative story about the walk and Cobum Place. Please come and walk with u&. Mary Jane Glaspy Coburn Place Thanks for support On behalf of Romona Baker and the Arts Council of Indianapolis, I would like to thank Editor Shannon Williams and The Indianapolis Recorder staff for the support given to “Art & Soul” at the Artsgarden. The publicity you gave our event helped contribute to this year’s record breaking attendance. Shannon, I could not have had the success with this festival without your support. Bruce L. Williams, Special Projects Consultant, Arts Council of Indianapolis Here's how to impeach Bush Look at your bills in the last four years. Look at the national debt in the last four years

Look in your children’s eyes. They don’t deserve to grow up and pay for this out of deductions in their paychecks. They deserve good, long, happy, and peaceful lives. And so do we. President Bush needs to go ASAP. I mpeachment is the nicest, most respectful way. Here is where you need to go to cast your vote: http:// www.votetoimpeach.org/. After you’re done, it would also help them if you could forward this to everyone in your address book. Print it and mail it to your friends. Hang it up in your offices and spread the word any way you can. I will do the same. Our children and this country deserve that much, at least. Troy Covert Bush ami the loss of U.S.jobs Our president repeats that “we’re creating jobs - good, high paying jobs for the American citizen” after losing well over two million manufacturing jobs. The dismal unemployment figures do not reflect the 544,000 discouraged workers who have given up job seeking, nor those who have accepted lower payingjobs in desperation. Bush’s focus is on encouraging outsourcing of our jobs overseas and doing everything possible to water down or oppose legislation to curb the practice. The top

outsourcers paid huge direct contributions to Bush and soft money contributions to the Republican Party as follows: American Express contributed $39,000 directly to Bush and $465,150 to the GOP; Bechtel gave $7,500 to Bush and $5,000 to the GOP; Convergys gave $7,500 to Bush and $5,000 to the GOP; Dell Computer, $40,250 to Bush and $793,550 to the GOP; Fidelity gave Bush $164,908 and $574,908 to the GOP; Ford offered Bush $76,200 and $268,257 to the GOP. Fidelity, GE, Delphi Automotive, MSNBC, Hewlett Packard, Sallie Mae and many others who have sent our jobs overseas also lined the pockets of our president and the GOP with similar generosity. Let this be a warning: Our jobs and our futures are being sold to the highest bidders. Jim Stillwell Writer Perry thanked I am submitting this letter with hopes a copy may be attached to the employment file of Brandon A. Perry, staff writer for The Indianapolis Recorder. I greatly appreciate his recent coverage of MTI School of Knowledge. This article was very well done, and I would just like to say “thank you” to Mr. Peny and The Recorder. Lana Lewis-Talib

YOUR VOICE

What are your thoughts about rising gas prices?

By EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON When former Bush counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke publicly swore before a national TV audience that National Security Advisor Condeleezza Rice was practically to blame for the lack of preparedness before the Sept. 11 terror attack, the tongues furiously wagged about her future. Some predict that she will exit the White House if Bush wins a second term, if not before. Time Magazine bluntly asked, “Is Condi the Problem?” Rice deserves to be on the hot seat, if as Clarke says, and he is believed, that she ignored intelligence warnings of a possible attack. Her excuse that publicly testifying before the 911 commission violates executive privilege is hollow and flimsy. National security advisors have on several occasions in past years testified before congressional commissions, Clinton’s national security adviser Sandy Berger, being one. Bush said on Tuesday she would testify on the record before the commission investigating the terrorist attack. But Condi, as Bush affectionately calls her, is thought by some to be the weak link in Bush’s top chain of command. Her expertise is on the Soviet Union and its militaiy relations with East European satellite countries, and not on how to assess and fight terrorism. By the time she took the reins as Bush’s security advisor, the Soviet Union was out of business, and many of the Eastern European countries had either been reconfigured or had become allies of the U.S. There were long stretches during the intense debates over Bush’s Iraq war policy, the terrorism war, foreign policy and security matters, when Rice sunk from public view. During those time lapses, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and even Vice President Dick Cheney became familiar fixtures on talk shows explaining Bush policy. This led some Bush watchers to ask, “Where’s Condi?” But Condi isn’t likely to be the sacrificial lamb for alleged Bush administration’s 911 failures, at least not yet. The sole reason that Rice became an issue in the tit for tat between Clarke and Bush over who’s to blame for 911 is because Clarke singled her out by name for blame. Yet, from what can be gleaned from the spate of recent tell-all accounts of the inner workings of the Bush administration, her role is not to make policy but to follow Bush policy directives. v Rlcfe Is perfectly Suited for that role. As a close personal family friend and political ally of Bush Sr. and now Bush, she has always been the consummate team player. Like a good team player she takes orders, follows directions, and does not stray one inch from the Bush administration political script. Bush officials have quickly circled the wagons around her. In their furious counter attack on Clarke, they virtually branded him a liar, and a self-serving, book peddling opportunist, while

downplaying Rice’s role, or barely mentioning her at all. Republican congressional leaders also gently let Rice off the hook, by attacking Clarke, and mostly omitting any mention of her. Rice also has dual political value for Bush. Her appointment as security advisor, a first for a Black and a woman, appears to confirm Bush’s oft-re-peated boast made during the 2000 presidential campaign, and largely dropped since, that diversity would be the new watchword in the Republican Party. Though polls taken after Bush appointed her his national security advisor, and Powell his secretary of state, found that Black hostility to Bush remained intense, many Blacks, Jesse Jackson included, still publicly expressed admiration for Rice and Powell. When Clarke attacked Rice, many Blacks privately grumbled that Rice might be made the scapegoat for alleged Bush intelligence failings. But Rice’s conservative views on social and domestic issues are generally in line with Bush’s, and that plays well with conservative voters who Bush needs to beat presumed Democratic presidential rival John Kerry. That was glaringly evident on the hot button issues of reparations and affirmative action. When Bush refused to allow the U.S. to participate in the U.N. World Racism Conference in Durban in 2001, ostensibly because of its antiIsrael tilt, and backing of reparations, Rice denounced reparations, and claimed the conference had been “hijacked.” When Bush backed the white students in their lawsuit against the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program last year, Powell openly criticized him, while Rice praised him. During her tenure as provost at Stanford University during the 1990s, student groups claimed that Rice attempted to gut affirmative action and women’s programs and oppose increased minority hiring at die school. Rice denied the charge, but her reflexive backing of Bush in the University of Michigan case indicated that in a heated battle on a contentious racial issue, Rice is loathe to break ranks with her boss. During her long association with Bush as a family friend and political confidant, Rice has loyally and aggressively defended Bush against all enemies. Her refusal to publicly testify before the 911 commission is the latest proof of diat abiding loyalty. Don’t write her political epitaph yet. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. Visit his Web site at thehutchinsonreport.com. He is the author of The Crisis in Black and Black.

Elaine James i “This issue is so important because everyone has to use gasoline. If everyone in Marion County Would fill up their tanks and not buy any gas for the next two days then we will certainly get the attention of gas companies and public officials.” -Elaine James

Betty Williams

Mark Jefferson

The whole situation is just ri- “I know OPEC and other oil diculous. These prices are so in- producing countries play a role in convenient for people, especially this matter, but President Bush, senior citizens on fixed incomes being a former oil man himself is because every dollar counts. I fully aware of what’s going on. blame President Bush for doing Never in my life have I seen gas so little to fix this mess.” prices stay so high and inconsis- - Betty Williams tent.” - Mark Jefferson

IT's Time To March for Women's Lives

By JULIAN BOND For NNPA

In the NAACP, we not only believe colored people come in all colors; we’ve always known they come in both genders, and we have made it our business to insure that everyone - regardless of race, ethnicity or gender - receives the equal protection of the law. One of the most important protections is guaranteeing the right to reproductive freedom and choice. That’s why for the first time in its 95-year history, the NAACP Board of Directors endorsed the principle that women have the right to equal access io family planning materials, information and choice when it comes to birth control. * And that’s why we’ve joined forces with more than 1,000 other organizations in support of the March for Women’s Lives on April 25th in Washington, D.C., and urge all who believe in equal rights to attend. We are uniting with national women’s rights groups to stand up against the administration’s cruel and insidious attacks on women’s health and reproductive rights. The right to reproductive freedom is as basic as the right to eat at a lunch counter or to cast a vote. If a woman cannot control her own body, she doesn’t have equal protection of the law, a right the NAACP has fought for and defended for nearly 100 years. Reproductive rights have deep roots in AfricanAmerican history and in the history of the NAACP. Early in the 20th century, the National Urban League asked Planned Parenthood’s forerunner to

open a clinic in the Bronx to serve women of color. Black newspapers promoted family planning and championed Black doctors arrested for performing illegal abortions. More than eight decades ago, the NAACP’s most distinguished founder, W.E.B. DuBois, understood that making birth control available to poor women helped them gain control over their lives. He not only believed in full economic rights for women, but in a woman’s equal right to control her body and her life. Every woman, he wrote in 1920, must have the right of procreation “at her own discretion.” And Black women today exercise that precious right at a rate far exceeding their percentage in the population, and large majorities identify themselves as pro-choice. Just as some people mistakenly believe that Brown vs. Board of Educationended segregation in education, some think that Roe vs. Wade ended the unavailability of abortion. They are wrong, the right to choose is under vigorous and widespread attack. From parental notification legislation to clinic regulation to prohibitions on contraception, the enemies of choice are ever active, always eager to deny equal protection of the law. Their antagonism toward women exercising free agency would make the Taliban blush. Great disparities of opportunity still shame and disgrace our nation - vast disparities between whites and people of color, and between women and men. It’s time for our voices to be heard. It’s time to March for Women’s Lives on April 25 in Washington. For more information, visit www.MarchforWomen.org. Julian Bond if chair of the NAACP Board of Directors. ,

The whiTe Jayson Blair

By OEOROE E. CURRY For NNPA

Philip Dixon, the chairman of the Journalism Department at Howard University and former managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and I were having a conversation recently about Jack Kelley, the USA Today’s white version of Jayson Blair. Do you think they pushed him along too quickly because he was white? Was he a white maleold boy network hire? Did his white bosses put him on the fast track because he was white? Did he have a white mentor? And would a Black reporter other than Jayson Blair be kept on staff that long after making so many errors? Does this reflecton all white reporters? Will they be looked at differently now? Dixon and I laughed as we peppered each other with these and similar questions, largely because they were a variation of the ridiculous ones being asked earlier about Blair, the New York Times’ serial liar. Dixon and I agreed that Kelley, who resigned under pressure in January, was worse than Blair because of the steps he took to cover up his plagiarism. And there was plenty to cover up. A special team of USA Today reporters, aided by three well respected outside editors, reviewed more than 700 of Kelley’s stories written over the past decade. The paper reported on March 19: “... an extensive examination of about

100 of the 720 stories uncovered evidence that found Kelley’s journalistic sins were sweeping and substantial.” The story that almost won a Pulitzer Prize three years ago was about a suicide bombing at a Jerusalem pizza parlor. Kelley filed a story that said, “Three men, who had been eating pizza inside, were catapulted out of the chairs they had been sitting on. When they hit the ground, their heads separated from their bodies and rolled down the street.” He claimed the heads rolled “with their eyes still blinking.” Editors deleted the “eyes still blinking” part of the story. They should have pulled the entire article. By his own account, Kelley was 90 feet away and was thrown to the ground, with his back to the pizzeria. Unless he had eyes in the back of his head, Kelley could not have witnessed what he asserted that he had seen. Kelly also claimed that to have met the bomber just minutes before the explosion. In an interview with CNN, he said, “there was (the) gentleman’s head laying on the floor, and I could recognize him as the gentleman who I had saw...” USA Today reporters investigating Kelley’s work learned from Israel’s national police that the bomber’s head and upper torso hit the ceiling and got stuck in an oven vent during the explosion. Therefore, Kelley could not have possibly seen it on the floor. His sins didn’t stop there. The team of investigators found, “Kelley wrote scripts to help at least three people mislead USA Today reporters trying to verify his work, documents retrieved from his company-owned laptop computer show. Two of the people are translators Kelley paid for services months or years before. Another is a Jerusalem

businessman, portrayed by Kelley as an undercover Israeli agent.” Even Jayson Blair didn’t go that far. Speaking of Blair, he continues to prove that he is a shameless liar. Not only did his behavior prompt the resignation of Gerald M. Boyd, the New York Times first Black managing editor, he even told a malicious lie about Boyd’s mother. In his book, he wrote that Boyd’s mother “died following a long struggle with drugs.” However, Boyd disclosed in his syndicated column, “Odessa Thomas Boyd, my mother, was 29 years old when she died, after a lifetime battle with sickle cell anemia.” He continued, “My mother’s life was one of making the best of an awful situation, which she did with courage and without complaint. It is unconscionable that a journalist would write something so hurtful. The truth is that my mother did not drink or smoke, and she certainly never used drugs.” Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would want to read or listen to what Jayson Blair has to say about anything unless they were interested in fiction. Even then, they could find better selections. Yet, this admitted liar can get a book contract, be interviewed on network TV newsmagazine shows and be welcomed at book signings across the country. If USA Today really wants to imitate the New York Times, the top two editors will resign. And Kelley, taking a cue from Blair’s lead, will no doubt be offered a book contract to write more lies. George E.- Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPress USA.com. He can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com.