Demagoguery at the King Funeral

We've spent a good bit of virtual ink over the past week railing at bloodthirsty mullahs. But we seem to have developed our fair share of pulpit demagogues over on this side of the Atlantic as well. This afternoon, President Bush and the first lady paid their respects by attending, along with former presidents Clinton, Bush, and Carter, today's memorial service for Coretta Scott King in Atlanta. But speaking to the multitudes, Rev. Joseph Lowery couldn't resist the opportunity for a little tasteless demagoguing, according to the indespensible Matt Drudge:

"She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there," Lowery said.

The crowd, of course, whooped it up on cue, according to Drudge. Nothing like a little friendly Bush-bashing at a memorial service. But the good rev, surely emulating the fine example of love and brotherhood set by the late Dr. King, wasn't done yet:

"But Coretta knew, and we know," Lowery continued, "That there are weapons of misdirection right down here," he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. "For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!" The crowd again cheered wildly.

The usual redistributionist mantra that hasn't helped America's African-American population to this day. We're surprised he didn't make a pitch for reparations.

Ah, but our honored guets weren't done with the Bush celebrity roast quite yet. The First Peanut Farmer from Plains had to get in a few gratuitous licks as well, basking in a glory he never earned, forgetting that at least a few people like this commentator remember the days of an utterly failed presidency, 16% mortgage rates, and America's utter humiliation in Iran, the legacy of which confronts us, and George W. Bush, today. Yes, the Nation's worst-ever ex-President said of the Kings:

"It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly.

Sorry, Jimmy. This is indeed the current Known Fact™ meme the MSM has been trotting out during the current flap. But let's take a look at history as it actually was. It was Saint Robert Kennedy, Democrat, who ordered the wiretaps (and unlike the current flap, these WERE domestic wiretaps). But being a Democrat is never having to say you're sorry. But the sanctimonious Carter was not yet finished:

Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush "hates" black people.

The gratuitious lie by Macarthur Genius Grant winner West was just icing on this bitter cake. Obviously, the marauding mullahs of the Middle East are rank amateurs when compared to national treasures like Carter and Lowery, both clearly driven by God to impose a fatwah on the President who, unlike them, has striven to keep the U.S. free from attack since 9/11. Both convincingly disgraced the memory of the late Dr. King who was as revered for his mild manner as he was for his support of nonviolence.

The real, multiplying disasters that continue to ripple even today from Dr. King's assassination in 1968 were on full display during these services for Mrs. King—a persistently corrupt, archaic, and hard left black leadership irrevocably in the thrall of a Democratic party that doesn't care a fig for them except at election time; a Louisiana state Democratic party that, being in near total control of Louisiana and New Orleans, largely has itself to blame and not George Bush for the wretched initial hurricane response and evacuation (and police department) that never happened; and a national Democratic party that enthusiastically and unashamedly embraces black demagogues who take great pains to distance African-Americans from the rest of America. Their claiming of the mantle of a man who longed and publicly prayed for a color-blind America is certainly fraud and verges on sacrilege.

Outcomes such as these were most decidedly never what Dr. King had in mind as he preached racial equality to a Nation at war with itself. Today's sorry spectacle in Atlanta is yet another example of how the hard left in America works tirelessly to keep things that way, to erode our culture and traditions and inflame racial tensions as a means of keeping "class struggle" in play by whatever means necessary. But nowhere has this Marxist reflex become more disgusting than the left's shameless appropriation of Dr. King, clearly a man of peace, to be used as a mere tool, a mere pretext, providing a bully pulpit for today's hypocrites, the Democratic apostles of contiuing racial hatred and divisiveness.

UPDATES: The Anchoress draws an important parallel to this behavior in her post "Wellstoning the King Funeral." Instapundit has pithy comments here. With some good links.