Yesterday was the funeral of Martin Luther King's widow, Coretta Scott King. On hand in Atlanta were President Bush and the First Lady, as well as former presidents Clinton and Carter, and George H.W. Bush. Many members of congress were also present, as were various religious leaders from Atlanta, and Jesse Jackson.
President Bush got up and gave an eloquent and charitable 10-minute eulogy of Mrs. King, rightly praising her and her husband for their contributions to civil rights in America. He then sat down and the liberals took over.
You might think that one of the last places where Americans of both parties can be Americans first, politicians second, would be a funeral. I mean, we threw out national disasters when Hurrican Katrina hit, right? Democrats were tripping over each other to get to a microphone and blast the Bush administration for incompetence and racism in their response to that emergency. But no, now funerals are apparently fair game, too, as former President Carter wasted no time in taking potshots at President Bush during his eulogy. Carter brought up the government-sanctioned (Democratic government-sanctioned) wiretapping of Dr. King and his wife in the 60's in an effort to slam President Bush, who is involved in a battle over wiretapping of potential terrorists. He also made a despicable comment that said flat-out that the Bush administration is racist when he commented on all the black deaths in the southern states when Katrina hit a few months ago. This from a former president. Amazing.
Then an early civil rights leader alongside Martin Luther King, Rev Joseph Lowry, got up to speak -- again, these are eulogies for Coretta Scott King -- and got a huge crowd response when he asserted that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and yet the Bush administration is happy to go to war and spend money there, all the while ignoring the poor in our own country. Again, despicable.
Dan Burrell at commonvoice.com had this to say about these two speakers:
Joseph Lowery is a has-been activist who can only make headlines these days by dredging up the past and being "over-the-top" in his rhetoric. Jimmy Carter was one of the most disgracefully weak and inept Presidents in the history of the republic. Years of building stick houses for Habitat for Humanity and running to elections in third-world countries may have rehabilitated his image, but his Presidency remains (for those of us old enough to have lived through it) a testament to his incompetence. I remember 18% interest rates, the Iranian hostage crises, a dead economy and his Mr. Rogers sweaters and blue jeans in the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan took about 20 minutes in office to restore it's dignity, authority and respect.
Patrick Hurley at theOneRepublic.com had some good comments, too, in his article, "4 Windbags and a Funeral".
Look, if you want to disagree with the government's policies, I'm fine with that. But let's keep it adult-like and charitable, and let's remember that politicizing, and taking cheap shots at the sitting President of the United States, at a funeral, is beyond classless and should never, ever, ever be done. Even if you think the POTUS is evil or a complete fool, you don't make comments like this at a funeral. Period. This is common sense, folks, isn't it?
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