Bush Speech to NAACP Set, and the Question Begs: Why the Change of Heart?
By Jackie Jones
President George W. Bush’s decision to address the NAACP convention, reversing his five-year refusal to address the civil rights organization, has political observers debating what sparked his apparent change of heart.

Until this week, Bush had repeatedly turned down invitations to address the group, the first president since Warren Harding to do so. In 2004, the president said he declined the organization’s request to address the convention because of harsh criticism by NAACP leaders.

“I don’t think it’s so much a change of heart. I think it’s no cost to him now because he’s not going to run again,” Toni Travis, an associate professor of government and director of the African American Studies department at George Mason University in Virginia, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Some observers speculate that the crisis in the Middle East, ongoing criticism of the way the administration has prosecuted the war in Iraq and problems with conservatives within the Republican Party have driven the president to find a way to boost his sagging poll numbers.

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