King’s Ransom

Last Tuesday, national leaders gathered in Lithonia, Ga. to observe and partake in the funeral of the famed civil rights icon Coretta Scott King. Replete with hefty doses of pomp and spectacle, the nation watched with rapt attention as political and civil rights leaders paid their final respects to one of the great women of the 20th century.

Tragically, beyond simply honoring King, several orators used the forum as an excuse to take pot shots at President Bush, who sat in attendance. In so doing, they upstaged an event that was intended to celebrate both an exemplary life and its legacy solely as a means to score cheap, political points.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who should have known better, interspersed his eulogy with furtive references to the Bush administration and what he believed to be its failings. Particularly pointed was his critique of the administration’s policy of wiretapping suspected terrorists without government sanction, which he likened to the FBI’s wiretapping and general harassment of Martin Luther King.

It was another speaker, however, that dished out the real partisan red meat. A protégé of Dr. King, the Rev. Joseph Lowery went so far as to bash both Bush’s foreign policy and his domestic agenda in one fell swoop, stating, “She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance…poverty abounds…for war, billions more, but no more for the poor.”

Granted, a number of the liberal civil rights leaders in attendance were rightfully disgruntled at Bush’s reluctance to associate with them, and, further, much of their criticism had validity to it. Still, a funeral is not a political forum, and a civil rights hero’s coffin should not serve as a convenient backdrop for Bush bashing.

Worst of all, journalists pounced on this criticism and covered it at the expense of honoring Mrs. King. In newspapers and on television programs across the country, an otherwise moving tribute to her and her legacy was overshadowed by coverage of this tasteless partisan banter.

Only a few years ago, similar political posturing marred the funeral of liberal Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone. When both Democrats and Republicans converged to honor him, disgraceful partisan rhetoric ensued. Minnesotans had wanted an opportunity to honor a leader, not the chance to watch a bevy of political blow-hards spout out contradictory talking points. Of course, regrettable as this was, at least Wellstone, who had defined himself by his liberalism, was irrevocably tied in many people’s minds to partisan politics. Mrs. King, on the other hand, should serve as a nonpartisan example of the power one has to effect positive change in this world.

When a reverential nation should have been paying its final respects to a hero, it was instead debating whether criticism of George W. Bush at her funeral would lower his job approval ratings. By using Mrs. King’s funeral as an excuse to pedal their own ideological agendas, several of our nation’s leaders illustrated just how devoid of honor and decency politics are in the United States today.

Stephen C. Bartenstein ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, is a government concentrator in Lowell House.