The best man to lead the NAACP just might not be a man

Gregroy Kane of the Baltimore Sun looks at who might be the best choice to run the NAACP post-Mfume. Do you believe Bill Clinton's name came up. Another good read by Kane.

Don't you pine away for those days when what was then called the NAACP's executive secretary was selected from someone who had toiled anonymously but effectively within the organization for years? But the era when a James Weldon Johnson would be replaced by a Walter White, who would be replaced by a Roy Wilkins, seems long gone.

So are you ready for one of those mentioned as an Mfume successor? Someone seriously suggested former President Bill Clinton.

Before you bring up the matter of Clinton's race - the claim that he is America's "first black president" notwithstanding - remember that the NAACP was founded as a multiracial organization in 1909. Its first executive secretary was white. The NAACP didn't get a black executive secretary until Johnson assumed the position in 1920.

Still, you have to figure that, with the organization facing an Internal Revenue Service audit, having a horny guy at the helm is not what the NAACP needs. Sorry, Bubba.

Ron Walters, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, said the NAACP needs a "more aggressive" type of leadership than the one Mfume provided. He suggested that California Rep. Maxine Waters, the former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, might provide such leadership.

The problem there is that Waters is a liberal Democrat from the House of Representatives who would replace Mfume, who came to the NAACP as a liberal Democrat from the House of Representatives. Add NAACP board Chairman Julian Bond, who was a liberal Democrat who served as a Georgia state legislator, and the organization would have trouble conning - er, uh, I mean convincing - folks into believing that the nation's oldest civil rights organization is as nonpartisan as it claims to be.