Bias By Omission: NAACP's F-Loaded Report Card Demonstrates Hostility To GOP

Ken Shepherd forwarded to me another piece of evidence that the NAACP has thrown its old attempted bipartisan stance, last seen in the Benjamin Hooks era, out the window. Reporter Hazel Trice Edney, a Washington correspondent for the National Newspaper Publishers Association ("The Black Press of America"), has this report in the Baltimore Times and other papers:

Although the head of the Republican National Committee and President George W. Bush have pledged to make a more concentrated effort to win over Black voters, 98 percent of Republicans in the House and Senate earned an F on the latest NAACP Civil Rights Report Card, compared to only 2 percent of Democrats receiving failing grades...

According to the NAACP’s mid-term report for the 109th Congress, all but one of the 231 Republicans in the U. S. House of Representatives got an F. The exception was Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, who earned a D. No House Republicans got Bs or Cs.

In the Senate, 51 of the 55 Republicans earned Fs. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was the only one to get a C, the top grade among GOP members. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, and Mike DeWine of Ohio, all received Ds. Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, an Independent, got a C....

At the close of the last Congress, all Republicans got Fs except one, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, who earned a C. This time, he got an F. On this report card, five Republican lawmakers scored higher than F.

NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton says the GOP improvement may be misleading because there were few major civil rights issues facing the Congress during the last session.

“There has been some improvement, but that is only within the context of the limited issues,” says Shelton. “There are a significant number of crucial, more contentious issues that haven’t made it to the floor for a vote.”

It's comical that Shelton feels the need to suggest that it's misleading and wrong that the GOP hasn't unanimously flunked! Better luck next year? Is it really exceptional for President Bush to decide to skip over this convention if he was invited?