I'll Show You Bad Manners

The funeral service of Coretta Scott King was a long and moving experience. I still don't think I caught all of it but I did see the people who made the "controversial" statements that the right wing pundits are screaming like banshees about. However, I think it was the child-faced, bow-tie wearing Tucker Carlson of MSNBC who really made me want to shove a rod up his behind. Reverend Joseph Lowery and President Jimmy Carter are two old men. As far as I am concerned whatever they say, whenever they say it, where ever they say, it is a God given right that they've earned through service, wisdom and experience as they approach their twilight years. I saw Tucker try to take this elder to task and if he wants to talk about bad manners (and disrespect) he needs to look in the mirror then BOW DOWN to both Joseph Lowery and Jimmy Carter. He isn't fit to shine their shoes, let alone question their behavior at the funeral of someone who lived, as they have, for people and causes other than themselves.

LOWERY: Well, I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t intend for it to be bad manners. I did intend for it to — to call attention to the fact that Mrs. King spoke truth to power. And here was an opportunity to demonstrate how she spoke truth to power about this war and about all wars.

And I think that, in the context of the faith, out of which the movement grows, we have always opposed war. We’ve always fought poverty. And we base our — our argument on — on the faith, on the fact that Jesus taught us. He identified with the poor. “I was hungry; you didn’t feed me. I was naked; you didn’t clothe me. I was in prison; you didn’t see about me.” He talked about war. He talked about he who lives by the sword.

So I’m comfortable with the fact that I was reflecting on Mrs. King’s tenacity against war, her determination to witness against war and to speak truth to power.

[...]

CARLSON: Were you comfortable with President Jimmy Carter`s remarks, which also seemed openly partisan and political? His reference to the domestic spying controversy now surrounding the president and to the federal government`s response to Katrina? Was that an appropriate series of remarks to give at a funeral, do you think?

LOWERY: Well, Mr. Carter is very capable of defending himself.

CARLSON: But what did you think, I`m wondering?

LOWERY: Well, I think that I`m responsible for my remarks and not Mr. Carter`s. I just think that, in speaking truth to power, if there were no fabrications and there were no deceptions, there were no misstatements or errors in fact, then I think that Mr. Carter had a right to say what he feels.

This funeral was in a black church that was predominately filled with black people. George W. Bush doesn't give the black community (nor most of the leaders that were assembled yesterday) the time of day or an ounce of thought. The uproar over these two men telling the absolute truth, mind you, is positively insulting. Was it an appropriate venue? Why not? Did they say things that Coretta might have said herself? Probably! The President had to squirm a litttle because a couple of folks brought up the reality of what he and his administration are and have been doing. He was at a King funeral but, at least for that day, he was not the King he is trying to morph his Presidency into.

Again, it was a black church - which has often been the only place of refuge for black people since the first slave ship docked. How dare these Bush-licking pundits purport to tell black people what to say and how to say it in their own church home? How dare they judge how we celebrate someone's home going? How dare they fancy themselves worthy of scolding either of these two fine men? The church is supposed to be a place of truth. Jimmy Carter and Joseph Lowery were truth tellers! If Bush cannot handle the truth, he needs to make sure he doesn't show his face again in the presence of those who speak it.