Coretta Scott King Funeral Turns Into Bush Bash
Posted on February 7, 2006
The funeral took on political overtones as former President Carter 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.” Later, he said that Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America.
And both Bush and his father winced as they sat behind the pulpit and heard the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr., take several jabs at foreign and domestic policies.
“We know there were no weapons of mass destruction over there, but Coretta knew and we knew there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” Lowery said, complaining that were far too many in the U.S. are living in poverty and without health care insurance.
“For war, billions more, but no more for the poor,” Lowery continued, a take-off of a lyric from the song “A Time to Love” which drew a roaring standing ovation.
Bush’s father tried to defuse any political tension by joking that Lowery used to challenge him when he was president, too.
“I kept score in the Oval Office desk — Lowery 21, Bush 3,” former President George H.W. Bush said. “It wasn’t a fair fight.”
The audience showed where its allegiance lay when former President Clinton and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, came to the podium to wild cheers and a long standing ovation. He opened by saying that he was honored to be with the other former presidents. Someone in the crowd yelled out, “Future president!” in reference to his wife’s possible 2008 bid.
“We can honor Dr. King’s sacrifice,” Bill Clinton said. “We can help his children fulfill their legacy. … Every one of us are in a way the children of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King.”Source
Leave it to the liberals to use the funeral of a Civil Rights leader to preach their Bush hatred. It isn’t even shocking how low they will go now. Absolutely shameful how the race baiters have no respect for the dead, and used this as a political platform.
Dhimmi Carter has been on a rampage lately about how the NSA wiretaps are illegal. It is obvious this was a direct jab at Bush. What he has done in the process however is shameful, in essence comparing the illegal wiretaps done by a democrat to Martin Luther King, to a vital wartime tool aimed directly at terrorists. He is comparing apples to peanuts. Nothing but pure cheap shots. Even Chris Matthews was embarrassed.
Expose The Left has The video of Lowery and one of Dhimmi Carter too.
Others: Right Wing Nuthouse
» Filed Under ACLU, News, War On Terror
Trackback URL
Comments
65 Responses to “Coretta Scott King Funeral Turns Into Bush Bash”
-
Affiliations
The Giants
-
Advertise
Donate
Our Store
Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
Stop the ACLU blogburst
-
More blogs about the ACLU
Syndicate Me
you do know that coretta king was a bleeding heart liberal, right? how does it disrespect the dead to state beliefs that they themselves held dear in life?
isn’t it more disrespectful for bush, a man Mrs. King has sharply criticized, to use the event in an attempt to mitigate his terrible record on the rights of minorities and the poor?
they were at the funeral celebrating her life and legacy, which whether rightwingers like it or not includes scathing criticisms of almost all the policies Bush has implemented. i wouldn’t get mad if mccarthy’s funeral turned into a commie bashing fest. i’d expect it.
aren’t the right wingers the ones who brag about how they have tons of common sense?
God forbid that inconvenient and controversial part of the King’s legacy of being anti-war live on.
Hey Neo-Con’s! Try to recite one quote from MLK other than “I have a dream”.
(insert Jeopardy! theme)
It gets tiresome for me–the racist and radical left using anyone or anyone’s personal tradegdy to further their hateful political attacks. Why does President Bush continue to demean himself and let these radical left racists abuse him and his office? Surely he must get tired of it. Perhaps President Bush should heed the biblical advice to avoid contentious people.
Man, you guys get so silly with the Bush hatred stuff. Nobody made fun of his wife, or his kids or tried to assualt him. People honored a lifelong activist life with a remarkable tribute to her, her children, her husband and the causes that were most important to her.
She has spoken in great detail about all of those subjects, and I’d be willing to bet that she would agree with most of those statements you quote and disagree with almost every position on this website. For gods sakes, she worked with the ACLU on a number of issues.
The more Democrats talk about race they more racist they become. If they really cared about ending racism they would be as colorblind as Republicans instead of pandering to everybody according to their race. I also find it quite revealing that NAACP lawyers are published in the People’s World Weekly, the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA.
You know I wouldn’t want to be a liberal and die, because your funeral will have nothing to do with you it will be just another democrat convention
color-blind policies work in a color-blind world. if you had walked a mile in my shoes, my parents shoes, my grandparents shoes and so on you wouldn’t say such trivial, typical, and ignorant things. progressives aren’t color-blind because despite the advances made in the civil rights movement, the work isn’t done yet.
and if a right wing columnist is published by a “liberal” paper does that make them liberals? big surprise: communists believe in a society where everyone (save the party brass in practice) is treated equally. what a shock they like the things NAACP lawyers have to say.
And the source of the “illegal wiretaps” of King? Kennedy: Democrat.
Corretta Scott King fought all her life. She would have relished everything Carter, Clinton, et. al. said.
This woman had people threaten to kill her because SHE WANTED TO VOTE. You think she’d be upset about someone criticizing Bush? Please.
Also: Who cares if the source of the illegal wiretaps (not sure why you put that in quotes) was a Democrat?
I don’t know if it was intentional, but the scroll text at the bottom of the screen of the picture above made an interesting counterpoint. I’m sure the libs feel that way, no doubt a result of the actions of the evilchimpymcbushhitler. LOL.
I must admit, I never really followed Mrs King’s life. So, what did she do? I know about her husband, but what about her? Can someone please list her activities since 1968. Not just attending this or that rally. I’m honestly trying to find out what she did.
“his terrible record on the rights of minorities and the poor?”
Minorities have no different needs than anyone else these days. Save it.
“if you had walked a mile in my shoes”
Everyone can say that.
“the work isn’t done yet”
Thanks to Dems and the minorities themselves that continue to separate themselves from the rest of America. Dems are not the least bit interested in advancing civil rights any further. If they did and won, there would be no reason to vote for them. There is a white Dem in Congress right now twiddling his thumbs watching Jesse Jackson thinking “Dance puppet dance!”
“Also: Who cares if the source of the illegal wiretaps (not sure why you put that in quotes) was a Democrat?”
A.) They were not illegal. That’s why.
B.) Kennedy is the most corrupt and evil person in Congress.
Hilariously typical. And they wonder why they can’t win elections.
Only one thing to say:
Predictable, and…in my opinion, I hope these morons continue to talk. I’m watching as many of my liberal friends are fleeing the democratic party.
It’s nice that they are doing all the work for us…
Oh boo hoo, Bush got bashed, if only in your paranoid imagination.
Looks like you agree that Bush just didn’t give a crap aobut the poor people in New Orleans living in squalor while performing for the rich donors, that Bush’s spying program is blatantly illegal.
Not really surprising. Lack of class and good taste among many of today’s liberal Democrats.
Do people not realize that the Kings were non-violent protesters for social change and were opposed to the war in Vietnam, etc.? What *content* from the memorial today was not fitting in terms of the Kings legacy?
“Our country and our leaders have forgotten Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that one day his children would “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”"
Unfortunately, many have forgotten (or have not taken the time to learn) that this ALONE was not MLK’s dream. It’s a small excerpt of the speech that doesn’t accurately portray the entire message. It doesn’t honor Coretta Scott King’s memory (or MLK’s) to mischaracterize such an important message.
From that march on Washington speech (the “I have a dream speech”), MLK didn’t just say that he wished that all men would not be judged by the color of their skin – he spoke against discrimination and unequal opportunity:
“One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned… But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
Towards the end of the speech, (in the “I have a dream portion”) he also says:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”
and toward the end…
“I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
Four years later, in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech, MLK spoke about both non-violence (in terms of his opposition to the Vietnam war) and it’s affect on social programs (especially on young black men who were being drafted for the war). He spoke about multiple reasons he was against the war, but tied the spending to the war to reductions in social programs that were targeted to help the poor (he noted that the poor were disproportionally affected by the war: “It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We are taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia or East Harlem… I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.”).
MLK gave another reason for protesting the Vietnam war – he would argue for non-violence when campaigning for civil rights / social change… “But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted…For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
When Lowery and MLK formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, their motto was: “To save the soul of America”.
MLK said that he felt that to ignore the war was to risk the soul of America.
MLK said that “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just…A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.”"
MLK spoke about a call to a fellowship of man, our loving one’s neighbor (and this was in the time of the Vietnam war): “This call for worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind…This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love on another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love…If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that his spirit will become the order of the day.”
Issues about discrimination, opportunities for the poor or people of color, war and non-violent approaches to social change, etc. – these are the legacies of MLK AND Coretta Scott King. To mischaracterize them is unfortunate.
A political person has a political funeral. I’m shocked.
Listen, if Jesse Helms dies tomorrow, I’ll bet good money that someone mentions his status as warrior in the culture wars, because that’s what he was.
The funeral of a liberal, black, civil rights champion sparks TWO of the speakers to mention, in a few paragraphs, current politics and suddenly every GOP apologist who has a blog has their knickers in a twist.
This is victimhood, and it’s not very attractive.
Oh, and before you stop the ACLU, you might want to consult one of their present clients, Rush Limbaugh. He might have something to say about that.
If I remember correctly, wasn’t COINTELPRO initiated by then, Attorney General Robert Kennedy???
The Dems may think they’ve hit a Home Run by abusing such an solemn occasion. Remaining blissfully oblivious of the number of middle class and young blacks leaving the Left’s Plantation in disgust.
Jack.
How dare they talk about passivism and the poor at the funeral for Coretta Scott King? dont they know she stood for bland values that we can all point to equally and say ‘I stand with the kings.’?
mahni,
Try addressing what was said at the funeral and not what you wish had been said.
Actus, You and the rest of your liberal ilk are beyond hope. The most compassionate thing we could do for all of you is to put bibs on you and keep you away from sharp objects.
Jack,
No, COINTELPRO was begun by J Edgar Hoover in 1956. During the Eisenhower administration. And for those who think talking about wiretaps and warrantless eavesdropping was irrelevant to Mrs. King’s life, here is an excerpt from the Church Report:
“The FBI mailed Dr. King a tape recording made from its microphone coverage. According to the Chief of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, the tape was intended to precipitate a separation between Dr. King and his wife in the belief that the separation would reduce Dr. King’s stature. The tape recording was accompanied by a note which Dr. King and his advisers interpreted as a threat to release the tape recording unless Dr. King committed suicide. The FBI also made preparations to promote someone ‘to assume the role of leadership of the Negro people when King has been completely discredited.’”
So, you have two people say something critical of the president, two out of how many? And of those two, one talks about the war, because King was anti-war, and the other talks about wiretaps, certainly germane to this woman’s life.
But keep implying that liberals are stupid, requiring bibs and protection from sharp objects.
Like the president, I love being “misunderestimated.”
Nobody should have to watch for sharp objects when they attend a funeral to pay their last respects to a civil rights figure.
I still find it interesting that this blog and others would captialize on the “politics” of the speeches from a woman you didn’t even have the respect to mention when she died.
Don’t jump on how disrespectful they are when you don’t even respect her death.
“Actus, You and the rest of your liberal ilk are beyond hope. The most compassionate thing we could do for all of you is to put bibs on you and keep you away from sharp objects.”
People told Coretta similar things…
Nothing is wrong with what was said at Mrs Kings’ funeral. The truth will hurt and is respected, even at a funeral. Bush should answer the question. What did or will Bush do (W.W.B.D.)to help the freedom cause? So far he’s done Nothing!
Nothing is wrong with what was said at Mrs Kings’ funeral. The truth will hurt and is respected, even at a funeral. (Tell it like it is). Bush should answer the question. What did or will Bush do (W.W.B.D.)to help the freedom movement faught so hard for by Dr. and Mrs King?
So far he’s done Nothing!
I was disgusted watching [edited] bush at Coretta’s funeral but when they started to bash his [edited] I think every African American in the country leaped for joy ([edited]I sure did)! They had the chance to say what people like me can’t.[ The only thing that would have made me happier would have been if Lowery would have pulled a gun and blew president bush's [edited] head off ]but that aint lowery or the King’s way! The bush’s have contributed nothing to freedom, but a hidden agenda and a crusade in the middle east. I’m tiered of republicans sticking there nose where it doesnt belong and forcing the rest of U/us to follow along. People like them want to live in the past and I have no problem with you living the way you do but I do have a problem with you trying to force everyone else to live by your beliefs. Give to the rich and take from the poor is the republican way! How can you not support abortion and not support healthcare as well as single mothers who may need help through welfare. It’s insane and I’m sure many may say the same about me and the rest on the far far left but its the republican [edited] that makes us this way! A black republican is genocide! I rather deal with people who know what its like to be black, poor and discriminated against. How many black republicans vs. Democrats are out there? So don’t give me that bull about blacks being suckered in by the Dems, at least we have a say so within the dems. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King or Coretta king and Rosa parks are what I consider role modals, people who did not just lay down and accept the law. People who would not just accept what the constitution had to offer and fought in order to make a change, not people who just roll over, accept it and play republican. Anyone got beef with what I said bring it to my website BLACK MEN OWN WHITE WOMEN under groups, relationships, personals! Now What ya dumb [edited]!
P.S. Thats aimed at those blind republicans who can’t see the light behind them and the dark infront of them!
P.S. Thats on MSN
Father Sin,
Are you penning for Kamau Kambon? Or are you just another useless troll?
David Terrenoire -
It’s interesting to note that if President Bush wanted to be as classless as Jimmy “I-invented-the-misery-index” Carter, he might have included in his speech the fact that the person who approved the FBI’s wiretapping of the King household in the sixties was none other than Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
But that didn’t stop Ted Kennedy from recalling the time he and his wiretapping brother made their “call” to law enforcement officials to free Martin Luther King from prison. You would have thought Dr. King was getting a reprieve from death row the way Kennedy told it. But he was, in fact, being held for a parking ticket.
“It gets tiresome for me–the racist and radical left using anyone or anyone’s personal tradegdy to further their hateful political attacks. “
Terri Schaivo ring a bell?
Father-SIN,
First of all I am a white women and you or no black person will ever own me. Second if you call this respect for the dead I sure as hell don’t want to be at your funeral. Your attitude is what keeps you down not the republicans, you refuse to work with white people instead you feel superior by denoting your black upbringing and how we should all feel sorry for you. Guess what I for one don’t feel sorry for you or anyone like you. It is people like you who keep your race down, there are a lot of white people who would love to be friends with black people but your kind won’t allow them. If they become friends with a white person suddenly they are not black enough. The white folks are not really their friends they are just using them although I would be hard pressed to know what we would be using them for since as you say you aint got nothin. You want to know why you aint got nothing? Because you sit around and wait for the government to hand it to you. Well guess what they have no plans to give you anything, they are more likely to take from you than to give. Take for instance they have already taken from you your dignity, your morals and any capability to think for yourself.
Bill Karl,
Your post requires a lengthy reply because when we get beyond the liberal/conservative Republican/Democrat black/white right/wrong view of the world and deal with actual humans engaged in often messy history, things get complicated.
So here goes. It’s true Robert Kennedy authorized wiretapping of King’s home phone, after being told by the FBI that one of King’s top aides, Stanley Levison, was associated with the Communist Party of the US (CPUSA). This was after extensive investigation of both King and King’s father by Army Intelligence and the FBI for suspected communist ties.
Levison had been in the CPUSA but had left the party before associating with King, however, Hoover kept this information from both Kennedys.
In 1963, John and Robert Kennedy advised King to break with Levison.
Here’s where The Atlantic picks up the story:
“Soon after that Levison himself, fully aware of the alarm that the Kennedys were voicing about him to King, told King that with Congress about to begin consideration of the Kennedys’ landmark civil-rights bill, he and King had no choice but to put an end to direct contact with each other. “I induced him to break,” Levison told the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in 1976. “The movement needed the Kennedys too much. I said it would not be in the interests of the movement to hold on to me if the Kennedys had doubts.”
Yet King remained reluctant to lose Levison’s assistance and counsel, and thus he detailed a mutual friend, the young African-American attorney Clarence B. Jones, of New York, to serve as a telephonic intermediary between himself and Levison. Marshall and Robert Kennedy picked up on the ruse almost immediately, and within days Kennedy had authorized the wiretapping of Jones’s home and office. Kennedy considered adding a tap on King as well, but decided to hold off.
[snip]
…at that time Marshall and Robert Kennedy were far more worried by the extensive evidence of King and Levison’s communication by way of Jones. The wiretap in Jones’s office recorded King asking for advice from “our friend” and apologizing for not calling him directly: “I’m trying to wait until things cool off—until this civil rights debate is over—as long as they may be tapping these phones, you know—but you can discuss that with him.”
Several weeks later Robert Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of King’s home telephone, in Atlanta; a wiretap on the SCLC office telephones followed a few days afterward.
The FBI’s wiretaps on King’s telephones remained in place until April of 1965 (at home) and June of 1966 (at the office)
[snip]
The transcripts from the wiretaps on King and his advisers also answer a question that came to preoccupy President Lyndon Johnson just as it had the Kennedy brothers and J. Edgar Hoover: Was Martin Luther King Jr. any kind of Communist sympathizer? The FBI never passed along to Johnson or to anyone else what King said to Bayard Rustin one day in early May of 1965, when the SCLC was tussling with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee over a public statement proclaiming movement unity: “There are things I wanted to say renouncing Communism in theory but they would not go along with it. We wanted to say that it was an alien philosophy contrary to us but they wouldn’t go along with it.” Instead the FBI continued to distribute utterly misleading reports that declared just the opposite; as one newly released CIA summary from just a few weeks before King’s death asserts, “According to the FBI, Dr. King is regarded in Communist circles as ‘a genuine Marxist-Leninist who is following the Marxist-Leninist line.’”
So, we have J edgar Hoover withholding vital information from the Attorney General and the AG tapping King’s phones because of reported ties of a King aide to the CPUSA.
I’ve read that Robert Kennedy expressed regret over this, but that’s beside the point.
What you have is an AG doing his job, at times an ugly job, and doing it within the Constitutional limits of his authority. What Hoover did with the information, both real and fabricated, was scurrilous.
Look, this whole dustup about the funeral is just diversion from what’s really happening in this country. History and politics are a messy business. I would suggest to you and a lot of the other posters here (on both sides) to stop seeing things through this two-dimensional left/right matrix. Some things are right and some things are wrong, but hardly ever do those things break neatly along party lines.
One of the reasons I don’t like getting involved in these things is because real life and real issues take more time and space than can honestly be hashed out in this forum. So with that, I’ll take my leave. Anyone who wishes to continue this can reach me through my email. I’m very easy to find.
I’ll let you politicize my funeral as long as you promise to politicize my wake.
While we’re at it, go ahead and politicise me BEFORE I die.
For my funeral, I want as many sermons by as many preachers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, & D. James Kennedy as you can find. If he promises to be in one of his better moods, go ahead and invite Pastor Fred Phelps too; thinking about him picketing my funeral might give me more reason to make my wake a succesful one.
Now, if I’m still single at the time of my wake, let’s try a morbid version of the dating game, because I might decide to wake up if you can find me a Godly wife.
[hours later]
Ok, I just spent hours preparing a blog post about politicizing my death and I still haven’t gotten around to submitting this comment, so I’m just going to post this comment, go eat, and get back to my blog later.
“It gets tiresome for me–the racist and radical left using anyone or anyone’s personal tradegdy to further their hateful political attacks.”
The childish phrase, “It takes one to know one!” comes to mind, as the Right is the master of this “using,” having used 9/11 as an excuse to trample mercilessly over the civil liberties the Right professes to protect.
“Our country and our leaders have forgotten Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that one day his children would “live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.””
His dream came true they are judged by the behavior, character and actions. By the way, did you know that the “Martin Luther King Center” in Atlanta is falling down from lack of maintenance. It is a dump…Now, who’s fault is that? The White Republican?
(eyeroll)
I don’t often agree with Cynthia Tucker @AJC but she is right on here. It seems the King Center has fallen on hard times.
In the years after her husband’s assassination, Coretta Scott King tapped into a deep wellspring of guilt, regret and longing to raise funds for a memorial: the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. In 1981, she completed a landmark $8 million building, with her husband’s tomb as its centerpiece. The King Center was to be a dynamic institution that would keep the dream alive.
But the center never came close to its potential. Now, it is close to collapse. Nearly 40 years after King’s death, the facility is crumbling; educational and advocacy programming is nonexistent; staff layoffs have claimed even the janitor.
How could this be?
The King Center has been ruined by the King family.
WTF? How did this happen?
King’s heirs have always been at least as interested in self-aggrandizement and material comfort as they have been in advocating civil rights and social justice. Even as fund-raising has lagged, King’s adult sons — Martin III and Dexter — continue to pay themselves six-figure salaries as executives of the institution. They have even mortgaged a nearby landmark, their father’s birth home.
Six figure salaries? It seems that the reflecting pool is leaking. The electrical wiring has become a fire hazard. The restrooms have backed up sewers. The place is a mess, but Dexter King makes around $180,000 and Martin III makes about $150,000. Not bad bucks to do nothing.
Now that the center is barely able to meet payroll, its staff cut by nearly three-quarters and repairs desperately needed on the leaking roof and the crumbling reflecting pool, King Center advocates want more government funds to help with the estimated $11 million needed for maintenance. According to former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, who was once a close confidant of King’s and continues to be a staunch defender of his heirs, “A lot of money needs to go into maintenance, and that can’t be the responsibility of the family.”
Yep! Gotta keep paying Dexter and Marty III the big bucks.
Nonsense. Congress should not set aside another dime for the King Center until the family agrees to deed the facility — lock, stock and barrel — over to the National Park Service. That’s the only way to ensure that taxpayer funds won’t be used to subsidize Dexter’s apartment out in Malibu. (While Dexter, who fancies himself an actor, still collects a salary and benefits package of $188,000 a year as board chairman and COO, he spends much of his time in Southern California.)
An actor? I guess so. He’s acting like he’s running the King Center. Unfortunately, he and his brother are running it into the ground but he did have a vision at one time.
When Dexter took over the center in 1995, he stripped away the last vestiges of civil rights crusading to concentrate on profitmongering. He visited the managers of the Elvis Presley estate to try to figure out how he could market his late father as they had marketed the dead singer. The family even fought the National Park Service’s proposal to build a visitors’ center near the King Center: the family wanted the site to build a for-profit museum — a sort of “I Have a Dreamland.” (Fortunately, the visitors’ center was built.)
I have a Dreamland. I love it. I don’t often agree with Cynthia Tucker but she is right on here. She went after the King family a while back when they tried to get $20 million for some of King’s papers.
The family will not easily or quickly concede that it ought to turn the King Center over to the National Park Service, which has the managerial expertise to maintain the property. The Kings are notoriously difficult to negotiate with. A few years ago, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) was close to persuading a reluctant Congress to offer the family $20 million for a large stash of King’s papers, which would have gone to the Library of Congress. But the family insisted on retaining the copyrights, so Congress backed away.
And she finishes with a final flourish.
Nevertheless, prominent activists ought to open talks with the family on the future of the King Center. If they don’t surrender it, the facility will soon be an eyesore — and a huge advertisement for the way in which the King heirs have debased the dream.
But they have made a lot of money off of King’s legacy. Ya gotta love the King family. He had a dream. They have a scheme (to make money) and it’s working.
I now think of the democrats at Mrs Kings funeral the same as the low lifers from the church in Kansas who protest at fallen soldier’s funerals.
From Tired “The childish phrase, “It takes one to know one!” comes to mind, as the Right is the master of this “using,” having used 9/11 as an excuse to trample mercilessly over the civil liberties the Right professes to protect.”
Exactly the lies and self serving I was talking about. No one used 9/11 to trample anything. But, it is a convenient way for you to slander President Bush. You are so jealous of a better candidate and a bettter man. You lost the election, why not accept it like an adult and work to make America better? Didn’t your father or anyone ever tell you “…be a man.”?
Tired Said: The childish phrase, “It takes one to know one!” comes to mind, as the Right is the master of this “using,” having used 9/11 as an excuse to trample mercilessly over the civil liberties the Right professes to protect.
Just the kind of lies and distortions I was talking about. No one trampled any rights or liberties except the attackers. This is just an excuse for you to attack President Bush. He was the better candidate and is the better man. Get over it, you lost the election. Why don’t you work to make America better? Didn’t your father or anyone ever tell you to be a man?
Dethaniel,
As a liberal, a Democrat, a patriot, and a veteran who has attended too many military funerals, your post about Phelps is highly offensive.
Have you ever served a [edited] day in uniform you slug? And I’m not talking about a Burger King paper hat.
Next time you check out Phelps’ message, try to guess where he falls in the political spectrum with his rabid anti-gay message. It sure as hell isn’t the left.
[edited] chickenhawk.
Edited for profanity rather than deleted for stupidity
Lobo
And LornaAlta,
I am a man, and I don’t hate Bush, I hate what he’s doing to this country.
He’s stretched my beloved military to the breaking point, he’s sold our mortgage to China for a few tax breaks for Paris Hilton, he’s made us a pariah among the world nations and he’s divided this nation like I’ve never seen, even in the dark days of the early 70’s.
This man is grossly incompetent. If he’d stayed in Texas running the Rangers, trading Sammy Sosa, I wouldn’t have a complaint. But no, he’s in DC running the country.
And he’s running it into the ground. That you all embrace and defend this pinnacle of ineptitude tells me you care more about politics than you do about principle.
Lobo,
Thanks. If you edited for stupidity, there wouldn’t be a blog.
David Terrenoire,
“Next time you check out Phelps’ message, try to guess where he falls in the political spectrum with his rabid anti-gay message. It sure as hell isn’t the left.”
A Kansas-based Baptist church led by a vehemently anti-homosexual pastor was once sought out by then-Sen. Al Gore, Jr. in his Democratic bid for the presidency in 1988, according to group leaders who at one time even worked for the Gore effort in Kansas.
Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and creator of the notorious “God Hates Fags” website, said that when Gore was running for president 12 years ago, he enlisted “members of the Westboro Baptist Church to help run his 1988 campaign in Kansas.”
Al Gore and wife Tipper with Fred Phelps, Jr. and his wife Betty in 1988.[onsite photo]
“In fact, Fred Phelps, Jr. [son of Westboro pastor Fred Phelps, Sr.] was one of his delegates,” he said.
Also, in 1989 Phelps claims to have held a fundraiser at his home for Gore, attended by an estimated 500 people and “considered a success by any political standards.”
So grateful for that support was Gore, said Phelps, that four years later, in 1992, Phelps was provided tickets to the inauguration of President Clinton. He was also sent tickets to the 1996 inauguration, he said.
(WASHINGTON) Reports linking Vice President Al Gore with notorious anti-gay activist Fred Phelps, Jr., and the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas were confirmed with the release of photographs showing Gore at a fundraiser at the home of Fred Phelps, Jr., who told the Conservative News Service on October 16 that he served as a Gore delegate on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988.
Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the church, told CNS that the 1989 fundraiser held at his son’s home was for Al Gore, and published several photographs on the church website to substantiate it, including one showing Gore and his wife Tipper arm-in-arm with Fred and Betty Phelps. Phelps, Sr. also told CNS that he provided office space and staff accommodations for Gore campaign staffers in the 1988 campaign.
Fred Phelps, Jr. also ran for Governor of Kansas in the Democratic primary in 1990, winning over 11,000 votes and placing third.
like I said… “rather than deleted for stupidity”.
Comments by David Terrenoire.
Typical script or talking points or party line. It’s easy to criticize President Bush and blame him for everything following your radical left leaders. What is harder is to try and bring some sense to your discussion. Blame President Bush all you want, but please, be a little original. Can you imagine, can you really imagine a nation under Kerry? Oh my goodness. But enough.
Once again, reactionary ignorance drives right wing simpletons to blow a gasket. This shows how little conservatives knew about the work if C.S. King. Your ignorance on her view of war and her absolute disdain for it show why the right wing missed the train when it came to civil rights. C.S. King shared similar sentiments with her husband that war was a sickness, forced upon society to masquerade the pillaging of the poor. The speakers during her funeral were speaking truth to power and were accurately paraphrasing what she stood for. One thing is certain, she did not stand with you.
loboinok,
Oh my God! You found awkward pictures of a politician with a discredited figure! Stop the presses! This proves that all liberals embrace Fred Phelps. Why, this is a true revelation. I’m so glad you brought this to my attention.
Does this mean Mrs. Carter approved of serial murder because she had her picture taken with John Wayne Gacy? Now I know why you GOPers hate the Carters so much.
But let’s not stop there.
I’ve seen pictures of Donald Rumsfeld, imagine this, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein! Really! I know you’re as shocked as I am.
And what about those pictures of Bush with Abramoff they won’t let you see? Oh, where will this end, lobo? Truly, you’ve managed with pictures taken in 1988, to shake my entire understanding of 2006 politics.
/sarcasm
Lobo, that had to be the lamest riposte I’ve ever read.
And to LornaAlta, when China decides not to underwrite our debt, drop me a line and let me know how easily dismissed that talking point is again.
As I said, if you edited this blog for stupidity, it wouldn’t exist.
I don’t have much time for people who are too damn lazy to do their own research or are too mentally challenged and/or ignorant to comprehend it when they do find it.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michael_haggerty/expose3.htm
It is a long read but you will know what gutterscum the Phelps cult is after reading it.
I don’t blame you for not wanting to claim this trash that further fouls the Democrats (gives you a preview of where you are heading) but we do not always get to choose these things, do we?
By the way, Dethaniel has been a vet longer than you have been breathing, assuming you are about 35
I did my research on Phelps, lobo. It may surprise you how much research I do. I’m a writer and I spend at least half my day up to my knees in history.
Not that you care.
And I enlisted in 1969. That should fill in some holes in biography, too.
David Terrenoire
When you have served as much time as I have 25 years days active duty and a lot of reserve time. I would not want to count the times I have commanded an honor guard for a military funeral. I was a hard shell democrat until I finally saw the light when the low life Clinton got elected. Now go dry yourself behind the years sonny and get some experience in life and them come back I again again relate the idiots that used King funeral polically as being the same as Pretending to be a Pastor Phelps.
Go dry yourself behind your ears? Sonny?
Dethaniel, I respectfully submit that you have no idea the life I’ve lived.
You seem like a naif when it comes to geopolitics, locked into this Democrat/Republican crap. Again, I respectfully suggest you shake off these party labels and really look at what’s happening in the world.
As for who I am, you can look me up. Unlike most of the posers here, my life is quite public. Just Google my name and you’ll see that I may be an entertaining person, or at least I hope I am, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t lived a full life of serious purpose. And part of that was my military experience. You may have more days in uniform, but quantity does not equal quality, my friend.
And for a veteran, you have an unhealthy tendency to underestimate your opponent. I would have thought they’d beaten that out of you in AIT. My time at Bragg made me understand that there’s always someone bigger, stronger, and smarter, and you should always approach an enemy with respect. But maybe you slept through that course.
Really, dry yourself behind your ears? Can you speak in anything but cliches, Dethaniel, or are you so insecure that you have to assume you’re always the toughest guy in the room?
Dethaniel, I’m interested in your combat experience. As a student of military history, a serious student of military history, I’m curious about your experience. Vietnam? Were you in MAC I, II, II, or IV? Desert Storm? Were you with an armored division, and if so, which one? Perhaps you’re a Marine and involved in Grenada? Panama? If so, tell me, Central America is my special interest, along with Southeast Asia, which includes Thailand, where many of my friends were stationed, or Cambodia, maybe Laos. Really, I’d like to know.
Don’t leave anything out. I’d like your MOS, the times and places of your firefights. It could make an interesting paragraph in a book.
And don’t worry that you’ll bore me, my interviews with spec ops guys from Iraq has taught me what to pick up and what to ignore. But don’t violate any clearances.
Somehow, I don’t think that will be a problem.
“When you have served as much time as I have 25 years days active duty and a lot of reserve time…Now go dry yourself behind the years sonny and get some experience in life and them come back I again again relate the idiots that used King funeral polically as being the same as Pretending to be a Pastor Phelps.”
I’m sorry, but this is just too much fun. Giving you some typographical license for late night and alcohol, your post is still incredibly illiterate, man. Really,
“and them come back I again again relate…?”
In your vast combat experience, were you shot in the head? If so, I apologize, but man, your syntax is (expletive deleted). Get your nurse to type for you, or learn to use your head wand, because you don’t make any sense.
Maybe it’s your age, but I think I’m older than you and I’m still articulate enough to make a living with words. So maybe it’s the brain damage, sonny. I’d check with the VA if I were you.
Really, get those frontal lobes checked and the get back to me about Reverend Phelps, a real liberal hahahahahahaha.
God forgive me, this is like kicking cripples.
Before you answer, Dethaniel, there are some things you won’t find in my public record, but unlike lobo, I don’t mind helping a fellow veteran out with a little research.
Here are some facts you won’t find by Googling me:
I worked closely with the former head of the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, what you know as profilers, on a book about serial murder.
A Lt. Col. I won’t name took me to the Quantico Range a few years ago where we fired MAC 10’s, Uzis, and my favorite, the H&K MP5. This was along with my own GI 1911, a CZ 9mm, a Walther .32, my S&W 686, and a couple of .22s, including the famed choice of CIA hitmen everywhere, the Woodsman. If you don’t believe me, check with the Filipino range master. I’ve forgotten his name, but he’d remember me, if for no other reason than the guy I was with. I don’t shoot much any more, but I still know how.
I’ve also, as I said elsewhere, interviewed special ops guys after the run-up to Baghdad including one guy currently on his third tour, this time with the Stryker Brigade. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the first writer to interview him. Tom Clancy’s men beat me to it.
Last fall I was on a panel with two former CIA analysts and a still active member of the FBI’s HRT. We spoke on espionage. My focus was MI. I also spoke at the same conference about private investigation, law enforcement, and private security corporations.
I studied and served at Fort Bragg, Fort Huachuca, Fort Gulick in the CZ and a few other places I’d prefer not to mention because, by law, we were not allowed in those particular FOAs.
So, I’d say that place behind my ears dried sometime before my ETS in 12/71. Just a guess.
That’s just to give you the sitrep. I can fill in more details if you doubt my word.
You obviously didn’t do any intel on me before your last post, not smart for a combat vet, so I thought I’d bring you up to speed.
I’d have checked you out, but you seem more comfortable hiding behind a nom de blog. That’s certainly your perogative, but it’s not how operate.
If that’s not enough of my CV for you Dethaniel, let me know and I’ll tell you about places in Washington that civilians never get to see.
Oh, that’s right, you’re not a civilian. You’re a veteran old enough to think that whoever you meet on the blog is someone you can condescend to, someone wet behind the ears, and someone you can call sonny with impunity.
After I’ve instructed you in military history of the past 50 years, if you’re still interested in being schooled we can talk about WWII, WWI (another of my special interests), or the Civil War. I’m no expert, but as my great-great-grandfather was the color bearer for the 42nd Georgia Infantry, I’ve studied more about the Army of the Tennessee than I have the Army of Northern Virginia. Life is short and there’s just so much to read.
So, lobo and Dethaniel, you still think I’m some liberal rube you can patronize? If you do, you’re bigger fools than I thought.
But before I go, if you were in the Army Dethaniel, those various stations I mentioned should tell you volumes about my military career.
Cowards and chickenhawks.
I expected you all to be stupid, but you surpassed even my low expectations.
But I didn’t expect you to run and hide. Given your Dear Leader’s behavior on 9/11, I shouldn’t be surprised.
Never would I hide from you that supports scumbags like Clinton and Carter, I would like to tell you like it is but Jay would delete the comments because it takes profanity to describe anyone who would use anyone funeral for a purpose other than honoring that person regardless if they were white, black, yellow, red, jews, muslim, buddist or what ever. So if you dont like the subjects that Jay posts in here you dont have to read them as I dont read blogs that are immoral left wingers.
Dethaniel,
Why don’t you get some more life experience and dry yourself behind the ears, sonny, and then come back and tell more about what a democrat you were.
Really, all I wanted was another chance to laugh at your illiterate post. We don’t get that level of stupidity on the lefty blogs.
“So, lobo and Dethaniel, you still think I’m some liberal rube you can patronize?”
I can’t speak for Dethaniel, but I think you are narcissistic and schizophrenic.
“Have you ever served a [edited] day in uniform you slug? And I’m not talking about a Burger King paper hat.”
“[edited] chickenhawk.”
“And for a veteran, you have an unhealthy tendency to underestimate your opponent.”
Try taking your own advice!
“Go dry yourself behind your ears? Sonny?”
That one really stuck in your craw didn’t it? Kept bringing you back time and again and practically turned you into a ’stalker’.
“someone you can condescend to, someone wet behind the ears, and someone you can call sonny with impunity.” (yup, ticked you off pretty good)
“…locked into this Democrat/Republican crap.”
“I respectfully suggest you shake off these party labels”
Again, I’ll suggest you take your own advice.
“I did my research on Phelps, lobo. It may surprise you how much research I do. I’m a writer and I spend at least half my day up to my knees in history.”
Since you can’t dazzle me with brilliance, try to baffle me with BS and tell us what your research revealed concerning Phelps.
OK, lobo, the research I found was that Phelps and his father were both Democrats. Finding an old Democrat in the south is really tough. I found that Gore’s campaign met with and probably used Phelps’ offices in his campaign. Again, not big news. I didn’t mention much about this because, as I pointed out, it’s about as relevant as Carter’s photo with Gacy and Rumsfeld’s photo with Hussein. Using your logic, if having your picture taken with Phelps makes you a right wing homophobe, then that means Rumsfeld is a murderous dictator. So there you are. But I made the mistake of assuming you actually used logic. My bad.
As for the rest, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Chickenhawk. Poser. Pretender to combat status. Being called sonny by this guy who coudn’t pack my chute did get under my skin, I admit.
The truth is, I’ve lived more lives than you and Dethaniel combined, and its all easy for you to verify, you’re so good at research. I’m welcomed in the homes of true patriots, those who have spent their lives serving this country at the highest levels of responsibility. People seek me out for my knowledge of intelligence work, weapons systems, criminal investigation, military history and writing.
My biggest mistake was thinking either of you had anything to offer besides partisan BS. Honestly, lobo, get your head out of your (expletive deleted) and really take a look at what’s happening in the world. Then we can talk. But as long as you leap on things like this Al Gore/Fred Phelps photo as proof of anything except proving the old adage that politics makes strange bedfellows, well, you’re certainly more desperate for some political validation than even this old narcissist.
Nice diagnosis, by the way. When did you get your psych degree?
“OK, lobo, the research I found was that Phelps and his father were both Democrats.”
They are not dead, they are still Democrats.
Odd for someone who claims to have thrown off ‘party labels’, to try everything they can to distance themselves from what any reasonable person would agree, is an embarrassing affiliation IF they were ‘fringe left’.
“Using your logic, if having your picture taken with Phelps makes you a right wing homophobe,”
The photo was an onsite photo and was part of the excerpts of two articles I posted. If I had felt it were central to the post, I would have included it.
“As for the rest, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Chickenhawk. Poser. Pretender to combat status.”
Where did you see Dethaniel claim combat status?
Rather, you assume he is not a World War or Korean vet.
All I see is someone who attacks a fellow vet who chooses to remain unassuming and who stated his opinion and the truth.
“The truth is, I’ve lived more lives than you and Dethaniel
combined,”
Maybe that is where I got the ’schizophrenic’.
“…take a look at what’s happening in the world. Then we can talk.”
Trust me, you don’t need me for validation!
“Nice diagnosis, by the way. When did you get your psych degree?”
Pssst The Dems aren’t using it as any Bush-bashing tool. King was a life-long activist and her politics are obviously going to be mentioned at her funeral. SHe opposed Bush until she passed.
The Dems did no such thing as hijacking her funeral, ok? They discussed her life-long activism, fighting for gay rights decades ago and other things.
Maybe you’re mad at the truth stated by Lowery, that no WMD”s have been found. Sorry but bugger off until you can fix the deficit, the poverty in this nation
I find plenty of stupidty on the leftist blogs when I waste my time reading some of them