<...NAACP is probably better recognized as a "special interest" group. I can't figure how Dubya got connected to this horrible crime. I need some explanation of this.

I couldn't find a film example of the commercial, but it's discussed in this article:

Clearly the low point of the long campaign is the NAACP commercial suggesting that Bush is a killer -- somehow responsible for the dragging death of James Byrd in Texas because he wouldn't sign hate crimes legislation.



"It was like my father was killed all over again," says Byrd's daughter in the commercial.

The spot flies in the face of the facts. Two of Byrd's attackers were sentenced to death and one to life in prison.

Dare the NAACP note that its two national leaders, Julian Bond and Kweisi Mfume, oppose the death penalty? Of course not. Are they suggesting Byrd's killers should have been tried for their thoughts before they were tried for their misdeeds?



The exact text of the commercial, with foreboding music, using the voice of the daughter of James Byrd:

"I'm Renee Mullins, James Byrd's daughter. On June 7th, 1998, in Texas, my father was killed. He was beaten, chained and then dragged three miles to his death all because he was black. So when Governor George Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again ... "

This was accompanied by mass mailings of flyers with similar messages to black voters. This ranks right up there with Bill Clinton's imaginary church burnings.

I am continously astonished at the way Republicans have been tarred as being racists throughout the party's history. The history of the civil rights movement has Democrats standing in schoolroom doors, waving axe handles around, and running around at night in white sheets. During the nastiest racist years in the Deep South, the entire region probably had a grand total of about six Republican elected officials. Why is the Democratic Party given a clean slate on this?