Bush did meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, contra Kerry's assertion.
Once, in January 2001. Pretty much the exception that proves the rule.
I don't think the slip matters. It's certainly less egregious than "non-defense discretionary spending was growing at 15% before my administration and is less than 1% now." That one didn't matter, this one doesn't either. I'm sure Hugh Hewitt will hold it up as proof of a smashing Bush win because that's his schtick, but everybody in the country knows relations between the White House and the CBC have been awful.
Hope you're right. Now Kevin Drum says they met twice...
Not an issue compared to the Osama thing; the two videos (new and old) will be running one after the other on the news (not to mention the Daily Show) and if the Kerry Campaign is smart, they'll be running it in swing states.
Great sound bite, stupid move.
Apos,
Since I know you're big on correct language, my understanding is that in the expression "exception that proves the rule," 'proves' is an archiac synonym for 'tests', which is the original meaning of the phrase
The CBC thing is no big deal. There was the photo op meeting on 1/31/01, then the meeting this February when 18 members of the Caucus jumped in a bus and went to the White House, wanting to meet someone about Haiti.
They got to hold a meeting with Condi Rice, and Bush stuck his head in the door halfway through.
And let's face it, the CBC isn't going to spin this for Bush. There was an open letter written in 2003 describing the disrespect Bush had shown for the Caucus.
Mary Cheney is gay? That makes me reasess everything.
Again, I hope you guys are right, but usually, if your disagreement goes two rounds (e.g., 1. He didn't meet with the CBC 2. Well, he did, but it was meaningless), you've already lost most of the people, who don't pay much attention. So the clip of Bush will be more effective, because it's about Osama, but it would have been more effective, I think, if there weren't going to be a formally similar clip of Kerry. We'll see.
You say "Bush's closing was better . . . "
Maybe you're not aware that he used the Tom Lea painting riff almost verbatim in his 2000 RNC acceptance speech. See Atrios.
I agree that Kerry's gaffe about the black congressional caucus was a bad error---Bush's face lit up right after he said it.
But I can't agree about the closing statements. To me, Bush sounded like a boyfriend or husband who knows he's about to be dumped: "I know we've been through some tough times, but if you'll just give me a second chance, I know we can be real happy together."
Because the media love to boil these things down to one moment for one guy versus one moment for the other, I'd say the CBC thing is way more than cancelled out by "I never said I wasn't concerned about Osama." I mean, really, if you're still undecided, you probably can't name a single member of the CBC anyhow.