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Compassiatism: The EvidenceTo demonstrate Bush's compassion, his campaign rustles up photographs of black people.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2004, at 4:10 PM ET

To: All Hands
From: Karl Rove
Re: Compassion

We're having a little trouble finding material to put in the Compassion section of the campaign Web site. The only compassion initiatives we've actually implemented are Leave No Child Behind and prescription drugs for Medicare, and these are already covered in the Education and Health Care sections. I think we can bluff our way through the issue brief, but the photo gallery is a real problem. We're up to our ears in pictures showing the president being resolute about the war on terror, but we only have two or three showing the president being compassionate.

What does compassion look like, anyway? I ran this question by a focus group and came back with a simple answer: Negroes. So please scour your photo files for any pictures you may have of the president holding, touching, looking over the shoulders of, or otherwise interacting with Negroes, preferably Negro children, since they test better than adults. If you must show an adult Negro, try to make it a woman. If you absolutely have to have an adult male Negro, your best bet is to make it Colin Powell. If you still come up short, pad the photo gallery with pictures from the president's trip to Africa.

Let's make sure to include one picture each of the president and first lady interacting with white children, to avoid charges of racial condescension. But don't sweat that too much, because our research shows that only 17 Negroes will vote for the president in the fall.

Thanking you in advance for your help,





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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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