Bush meets with blacks
‘all the time’

By Les Kinsolving

Editor’s note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you’d like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily’s exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!

At today’s White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Scott McClellan about President Bush’s reticence to meet with representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP.

Reporter April Ryan of the Urban Radio Network was energized by WND’s question and assisted in challenging McClellan on the issue.

WND: The AP reported from New York that Kweisi Mfume said that while President Bush can cross oceans to meet with black leaders in Africa, he has refused to meet with the NAACP’s leaders ever since he became president. And my first of two questions, is this refusal because the president realizes that the NAACP is really a Democrat Party front group?

McCLELLAN: Look, the president meets with African-American leaders all the time. He believes in reaching out to –

WND: He hasn’t met with them.

McCLELLAN: He meets with African-American leaders all the time –

WND: Not the NAACP.

McCLELLAN: – from religious leaders to others. He met with Rev. Jackson and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus at the Urban League. He spoke to the Urban League; he met with the Urban League.

RYAN: They said that was not a meeting. They said that was for those people in that picture. That was not a meeting.

McCLELLAN: Can I finish, please? He spoke before the Urban League and met with African-American leaders at that event. So he meets with African-American leaders all the time.

RYAN: They said that was not a meeting. They were requesting at that time a meeting –

McCLELLAN: Do you want to finish, Les?

WND: I’ll always yield to my dear friend here (Ryan).

The new Pebble Beach

An area near the White House previously known as “Pebble Beach,” which affords television crews the ability to film correspondents with the executive mansion as the background, has been refurbished. Since the area no longer includes a pebble ground covering, new names for the area are being solicited from the White House press corps.

WND noticed a bulletin board in the White House pressroom with nominations scrawled on it. Leading contenders include: Stonehenge, the Quarry, Hoffa’s Final Resting Place, the News-Free Zone, the Briar-Liar Patch, Death Valley and Montezuma’s Revenge.


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Les Kinsolving

Les Kinsolving hosts a daily talk show for WCBM in Baltimore. His radio commentaries are syndicated nationally. His show can be heard on the Internet 9-11 p.m. Eastern each weekday. Before going into broadcasting, Kinsolving was a newspaper reporter and columnist – twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary. Kinsolving's maverick reporting style is chronicled in a book written by his daughter, Kathleen Kinsolving, titled, "Gadfly." Read more of Les Kinsolving's articles here.