King Funeral: The Public Shaming of the President

Nice to see that the politics invaded the funeral of Coretta King.

Joseph Lowery, who founded the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Coretta's late husband, brought down the house with remarks directed squarely at Bush.

'We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there, but Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection here,' Lowery said, using a poetic cadence typical of black ministers.

It was a clear reference to the unconventional weapons Bush cited to justify the invasion of Iraq, and the 'misdirection' of Bush's proposed budget for 2007 that boosts defence and security spending while cutting social programmes - and taxes.

'For war, millions more, but no more for the poor,' Lowery said, provoking laughter and applause. At the end, he turned abruptly and shook a smiling Bush's hand.

I'm not certain what WMDs had to do with the funeral, other than giving Lowery a pivot to throw muck at Bush. Of course, as I recall, the Iraq resolution had 22 other reasons and was approved by the senate, but let's not point out inconvenient facts in the face of Lowery's stunning rhetoric. As to misdirection, that strikes me as totally disingenuous. The budget is completely open and available for everyone to see. It's also not the end product, just the proposal. The congress has to layout the end product.

I'm surprised the article doesn't continue the quote relating to the wire-tapping of King. [I can't find a news report with the quote, so I'm not certain if Jemma or Lowery said it.] The obvious reference of the evil Bush adminstrations use of wire-taps on foreign-to-domestic sources. That got them on their feet at the funeral. Though the inconvinient facts that a democrat was president when it happened to King, and the democratic attorney general ordered them.

Then, to no one's great surprise, Jemma started throwing stones.

Former president Jimmy Carter also raised the racial and social inequities exposed by Hurricane Katrina.

'Those who were devastated by Katrina know that there is not yet equal opportunity for all Americans,' he said.

Carter noted that, as a southern Democrat from Georgia, he would never have entered the White House in 1977 if it had not been for the African American vote - a vote made possible by the voters' rights and registration campaigns led by the Kings.

Nothing like a funeral to show public scorn for the Political establishment you disagree with.