Some People Never Learn

The behavior of some of the speakers at Coretta Scott King's funeral isn't surprising, but it's still in poor taste...

While Bush was greeted respectfully at the funeral, the tension between him and some black leaders also was evident. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, drew a standing ovation when he criticized the war in Iraq, saying, "There were no weapons of mass destruction over there."

"For war, billions more, but no more for the poor," Lowery added as Bush sat behind him on the speaker's platform.

Former president Jimmy Carter, who has been critical of Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, pointed out that King and her husband, the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., were targets of a "secret government surveillance" at the height of the civil rights movement.

"The struggle for equality is not over," Carter said. "We only have to recall the color of the faces in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi -- those most devastated by Katrina -- to know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

Ye Gods, can't you save the political opportunism for another time? You are there to pay respect to a woman who passed away, yet opt to make uncomfortable some of the very people who came to pay their respects. That's insulting to the dead and the living. You'd think people learned this after the Paul Wellstone memorial service turned into a pep rally, but some bitter elements of the left will never learn.

As to President Bush's presence and the tension between him and the African-American community, Captain Ed nails the issue...

In 2000, when Bush ran for president, he made a point to speak at an NAACP meeting in order to "reach out" to the leadership. He was rewarded for his effort by an NAACP ad campaign that attempted to pin the James Byrd lynching on Bush, who had resisted hate-crime legislation in Texas. The despicable ads never mentioned that Texas had captured, tried, and convicted the men responsible and sentenced them to death -- underscoring Bush's point about the superfluousness of hate-crime laws. The NAACP just wanted to tar Bush with the lynching to smear him as a closet bigot.

After that ad came out, Bush garnered 9% of the African-American vote, but won office anyway. The NAACP then spent the next five years whining about Bush refusing to visit them. Why should he? They proved to have no appreciation for his earlier appearance, his first attempt to "reach out", and they effectively marginalized themselves with an insulting, degrading, and unfair smear campaign. Bush decided to "reach out" in other directions, bypassing old-line organizations like the NAACP and leaders like Jesse Jackson and instead appeal directly to the communities themselves, through the churches and other organizations. It had a small effect: his share of the African-American vote rose to 11% in 2004.

So much for the "growing gulf".

Bush went to King's funeral because of the stature of her life and the work she accomplished during it. Again, he "reached out" -- and what happened? The political leaders on the left turned the funeral into an embarrassing recapitulation of the Wellstone funeral, using the corpse of King as a soapbox to harangue a President who had simply come to pay his respects. Instead of focusing on a moment of unity, when people from all walks of life and political persuasions could meet and agree that Coretta Scott King had made a positive difference for America, they turned it into a partisan sniping show, with the ever-bitter Jimmy Carter making himself the center of attention, as always.

Jimmy Carter. Any time, I see the name, I think back to Jay Nordlinger's wondrous piece on Carter in 2002, Carterpalooza. More people should read it. Me, I'm going to be polite and avoiding saying more about what I think of America's 39th President.

As to the funeral, Coretta Scott King deserved better. America's a better place because of her efforts and those of her late husband. For that we should be grateful, and we should mourn her passing. It would help if we could do both of those things with some grace.