Civil rights activist and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond delivered a blistering partisan speech at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina last night, equating the Republican Party with the Nazi Party and characterizing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, as "tokens."
"The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," he charged.
Calling President Bush a liar, Bond told the audience at the historically black institution that this White House's lies are more serious than the lies of his predecessor's because Clinton's lies didn't kill people.
"We now find ourselves refighting old battles we thought we had already won," he said. "We have to fight discrimination whenever it raises its ugly head."
He referred to former Attorney General John Ashcroft as J. Edgar Ashcroft. He compared Bush's judicial nominees to the Taliban.
The talk so infuriated at least one black family in attendance among the 900 in the auditorium that they got up in walked out in protest.
"He went on and on name calling," said Lee Wilson. "I walked out in the middle of his speech with my wife and three kids"
The harsh partisan rhetoric from Bond should not have surprised anyone who has followed him in recent years.
In July 2001, Bond said, "[Bush] has selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing, and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection."