Legacy…

Funerals don’t happen for those who have departed this Earth.
They occur for those of us who are left behind to remember them and celebrate their lives. In some schools of thought, funerals exist to give us closure. In others, they exist to give friends and loved ones a chance to say goodbye. Either way, funerals provide us an avenue to grieve and mourn and do so in our own way.
More than 10,000 mourners turned out at the funeral for Coretta Scott King on Tuesday when the service was held in Lithonia, Georgia. People from every walk of life turned out to celebrate the life of Mrs. King including entertainers, religious leaders, civil rights leaders and presidents.
The services lasted six hours. Stevie Wonder and Michael Bolton sang. Oprah Winfrey spoke. Maya Angelou read poetry. What should have been a celebration of life, wasn’t. Sadly, it turned into a political crusade against the Bush administration–with the Chief Executive sitting front and center.
I was thoroughly disgusted by former president Jimmy Carter. Carter, who will undoubtedly go down in history as one of America’s least successful leaders, began by criticizing the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina:

“We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, those who were most devastated by Katrina, to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans.”

He also saw fit to work in a somewhat thinly-veiled comment with regard to the disputed domestic eavesdropping program of the Bush Administration:

“It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping,other surveillance and as you know, harassment from the FBI.”

Jimmy Carter shows his true colors here, folks, and they’re the same as the rest of the current Democrat leadership. Cheap shots, half-truths, anger and negativity. Carter couldn’t just celebrate the life of a remarkable human being, he had to use the opportunity to attack the current administration. That’s a pretty bold tactic by someone who might go down as the worst president in US history.
At the very least, he’s someone who seems to be quite selective in his recollection of history. There was an unpopular war with troops committed by the President and a series of questionable wiretaps, and some of the involved parties were considered “friends” of the civil rights movement.
Those wiretaps Carter spoke of were issued by both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations under the direction of then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Nice of Jimmy to attempt to draw a parallel for us, but it’d be nice if he actually understood what he was talking about. Alas, he seemed to have that problem when he occupied the Oval Office, too.
“Not yet equal opportunities for all Americans?” Pardon me, President Carter, but let’s follow the math here and use New Orleans as an example: New Orleans is a city where the majority of people, according to the US Census Bureau, are “Black or African American people.” 67.3% of approximately 470,000, outnumbering caucasians by an almost 2:1 margin. So, following the logic train, if most of the residents of New Orleans were evacuated—and most of the residents of New Orleans are black—then doesn’t that mean that a majority of the people who made it out of the area were black??
How is that “not yet equal opportunities,” President Carter?
It didn’t end with Jimmy, though. Reverend Joseph Lowrey, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which was founded by Dr. King, used the occasion to read some poetry he had written:

“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.”

Lowrey drew a standing ovation. President Bush, sitting directly behing Lowrey, could only smile and shake his head.
The funeral of Coretta Scott King–a woman who worked for the bettering of humanity–descend into a shameless political rally and it was thoroughly disgusting. Certainly both Dr. and Mrs. King had political involvements and beliefs in their lifetimes, but none of this was about Coretta, it was about the humiliation of the President and for no other reason than he was in attendance.
It was shameful and disgusting and it took away from the real focus: Coretta Scott King’s legacy.
Even the media picked up on it. CNN’s Jeff Greenfield asked the very poignant, “‘Do you really do this at a funeral?” Don Imus even expressed shock and disgust at the events.
The Libs just don’t get it though. A posting on the prolific Liberal blog, Daily Kos, explains it away as if yesterday were a normal funeral:

I would have thought that friends and family would be the ones to determine how to celebrate the life of the guest of honor at any funeral. I’d have thought they would after all be the ones in a position to know that person and that they’d know what that person might want.

I would have thought that, Imus you twit, because it’s common practice in the entire civilized world. Joseph Lowery and President Jimmy Carter were personal friends of Coretta Scott King and her family. That means they get to talk about her life and her work however they deem fit. Not you buddy. Just who the hell are you to tell them what is and what is not appropriate? Who the hell are you to tell the friends and family of anyone what they ‘ought to’ say…

Perhaps the Liberals only know one way to celebrate life—with anger. It permeates their rhetoric, defines their ideology and rules their lives.
That’s not the life that Coretta Scott King lived and it’s certainly not the legacy she leaves behind. I’ll admit that I didn’t know her, but I’m pretty confident that I know that much about her. It’s too bad that some of the people who call themselves her friends didn’t.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com