Wednesday, February 08, 2006
The Funeral
Recently I’ve heard a lot of crying from conservatives about the politicization of Koretta Scott King’s funeral. I originally was going to talk about this because I didn’t consider it significant enough, but recently I’ve realized that we can all draw some important lessons from this.
I consider it a good point some of my conservative colleagues have. Funerals are times for mourning, I’ve always been taught. I guess I’m just not Irish.
So it might be considered to be in poor taste to politicize a funeral. The something remotely similar happened at Paul Wellstone’s funeral in 2002. I considered that, however, to be conservative whining. The political polemics at Wellstone’s funeral were far more mild, and Wellstone was a politician who devoted his life to a cause. I don’t think many liberals would be offended if, at Bush 41’s funeral, some of his friends stood up and talked about continuing the noble cause of conservative politics, etc. I would just hope the speakers would pull up short of the whitewash that attended Nixon’s funeral, when Bob Dole called Nixon a great president and others lies “so shameful he made himself cry,” as Hunter Thompson so memorably said.
So Jimmy Carter and others taking this moment to skewer the president was inappropriate, though deep in my liberal heart I cheered the public excoriation of a president seated behind the speakers. W doesn’t get to see much public resentment of his unpopular policies due to the draconian efforts of his aides, staffers, political hangers-on, and security detail. It’s a dose of medicine he badly needs.
Clinton, who gave an amusing and non-political speech, was roundly praised by conservatives and liberals for giving a good speech. It never ceases to amuse me to hear conservatives praise Clinton as their current president looks increasingly pale by comparison. They still hate his politics, of course, but they don’t deny his public charisma, something that is made obvious when he speaks at the same event as the current president or his wife.
Which brings me to the first (or is it second) lesson of the funeral: even Mrs. Clinton’s supporters said her speech was colorless next to that of her husband’s. That pretty much sums up her whole political character: Bill Clinton-lite. All the triangulation with none of the charisma. Hillary, though she is regarded by many as the democratic front-runner for president in 2008, is not a winner. John Kerry would make a better candidate for president than her in 2008 even though he already lost once.
The conservative resentment of the funeral, however, is so great that an additional factor must be adduced to account for their incessant coverage of it. This is more than a concern for comportment and dignity at a funeral. I can’t help but think this is also resentment against the fact that Mrs. King was an icon of a movement that is hostile to their political philosophy and a race that is hostile to their party. African-Americans, who comprised the vast majority of the audience, don’t vote republican. Their approval rating of the president is incredibly low, even in the single digits in some polls. Mr. King was a civil rights leader who, while having bridged the gap between political radical and mainstream hero in his death, is still viewed with hostility in much of the modern home of the GOP, the South and the West. Bob Grant, famous conservative radio talker, has frequently voiced his hatred for Mr. King over the years. Sean Hannity, the #2 radio host in the country, has frequently cited Bob Grant as one of his greatest inspirations in radio talk.
I don’t think I need to argue that if MLK were alive today he wouldn’t be a republican, so forgive me if you think I’m begging the question. 90% of African-Americans and all of the great African-American civil rights leaders from his day vote democrat, including Jesse Jackson and others. Conservatives have had the unenviable job for years of paying lip service to MLK’s legacy while simultaneously championing candidates like Strom Thurmond. It’s an amazing resolution to cognitive dissonance that is necessary for the survival of their party.
Despite what Ken Mehlman says they don’t want to lose the racist vote in the South, but they won’t be admitted to polite company shitting on the legacy of Martin Luther King. They want to lock up the dittohead angry white male vote but they don’t want to wander so publicly into the realm of bigotry. So they developed subtleties. The Southern Strategy. “States Rights” when used as a shield for efforts to undermine federal civil rights legislation. Exhortations to let people compete in a “fair” marketplace when they know this marketplace has never been fair. African-Americans make up 13% of the population but just 1% of the senate. We still have a long way to go before racial equality is achieved in this country. Nearly forty years has passed since MLK but our “fair” market of commerce and ideas has not righted itself to where African-Americans are fairly represented in the boardrooms or the government.
Conservatives can cry about the politicization of the funeral or how democrats have “duped” African-Americans into voting “D” every election but they aren’t fooling African-Americans. Working ardently to systematically undermine civil rights processes and then pointing to Condi Rice as proof the president gives a fair place to African-Americans isn’t selling in the African-American community. They will have to do better. Unfortunately, this means abandoning the largest part of their base that doesn’t want to see anything resembling affirmative action as a Republican Party platform. I don’t see the republicans doing this anytime soon. Until then they can expect to see many more African-American civil rights leaders’ funerals turn into impromptu democratic rallies.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 9:27 AM 
