WP: Lowery Defends His Criticism of Bush at Coretta King Funeral

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022101611.html

Lowery Defends His Criticism of Bush at Coretta King Funeral

Responding to charges that he used Coretta Scott King's funeral to mount a partisan attack on President Bush, the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery said yesterday that his conservative critics do not understand black funerals and are seeking to insulate the president from independent views.

"The Republicans who are criticizing me don't understand the (tradition) of a black funeral," Lowery said in an interview. "At a black funeral we always celebrate the life of the deceased and take up the causes that the decedent championed. Mrs. King's cause was peace and racial justice, and I challenged the living to do likewise."

Since the King funeral, conservative bloggers and pundits have railed against Lowery, saying that his comments and those of former president Jimmy Carter were out of place at what was supposed to be solemn occasion.

...

"The problem is the Republicans always want to protect Bush," Lowery said. "They don't want to expose him to independent-thinking audiences. They want to shelter him from the truth."

[wordpix]

1. keep shouting it out, Rev. Lowery, we're with you!

[gratuitous]

2. Translation: Stick THAT in your pipe, Republicans

You know, if your savior and king, President Stupidhead, didn't insist on isolating himself from all dissent this wouldn't be a big deal at all. But he's clearly not up to the job he was handed, and he's fucking up more and more as the circle around him grows ever smaller, and those folks are a little more preoccupied with avoiding jail than they are in making Stupidhead look good.

[exlrrp]

3. Where the hell do they get off??

Whats always completely amazing to me is how "fair balanced and accurate the media gets when talking about the civil rights issues---its like the want to beleiev that tyhe civil rights movement was a bipartisan Kumbaya moment when liberal and conservative alike joined hands and ridded the US of those nasty ol racists that weren't attached to any particular party.
Conservative BS, a complet rewrite of history. guess itrs news to the media that underneath those white hoods and sheets were: CONSERVATIVES!!! right?? Theyre not going to possibly say that ther KKK was liberal are they?? Thats why they don't mention the KKK--terrorist arm of the far right copnservatives at all!!
Or mention segregation at all either and who was responsible for it? Why don't they ever read the words of Stromn Thurmond who ran for President on a segregationist platform---and then served as Republiican senator untill over 100 years old!!
WHERE THE HELL DO THEY GET OFF CRITICIZING ANYTHING SAID AT A CIVIL RIGHTS FUNERAL???
Pardon the outrage but who the hell are these people to criticize ANYTHING abot the civil rights movement when it was done over the dead bodies of liberals--including the husband of the woman being honored??
Why didn't the MSM show all the spying the Conservatives did on MLK for instance?? Why didn't they cover J Edgar Hooveer sending pictures of MLK with another woman to Corettta King?? (it HAPPENED!!)
Why didn't they say anythig about the tremendous resistance to civil rightrs inhgerent in the conservative movement??
no instead the 2006 media chose to cover the civil rights movement as a national Kumbaya moment that was ended in a bipartisan manner??
Where the hell do they get off??

[calimary]

8. Good point. The civil rights movement, and its heroes - like Martin,

Coretta, and the Rev. Lowery - got this far and made these gains IN SPITE OF the republi-CONS among us. All the GOP ever did was try to stand in their way.

Sorry, all you self-righteous, self-flaggelating CONservatives - TRUTH HURTS. Time to grow up and face it.

[arcane1]

12. it is the CONSERVATIVES who "politicized" this funeral

typically acting all offended by those remarks, when those same remarks got a STANDING OVATION at the ATCUAL funeral

:eyes:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Amen, Reverand!

You keep on preaching. We in the choir will back you up!!!!

[xchrom]

5. lots of us out here had your back reverend!

the msm{not} just never told any one about us.

[zann725]

6. When we (as American "free" citizens") HAVE to defend telling the Truth

...speaking Truth to Power...we ARE no longer free.

[sattahipdeep]

7. They want to shelter him from secretly Desecrating Corpses

They want to shelter him from secretly dumped remains in a wooded area where the remains
may have been consumed by wild animals.

Additionally, SCI buried "remains in locations other than those
purchased by plaintiffs; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for
other vaults; burying remains on top of the other rather than
side-by-side; secretly digging up and removing remains; secretly burying
remains head-to-foot rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body
parts and remains from different individuals; secretly allowing plots
owned by one part to be occupied by a different person; secretly selling
plots in rows where there were more graves assigned than the rows
could accommodate; secretly allowed graves to encroach on other plots;
secretly sold plots so narrow that the plots could not accommodate
standard burial vaults; secretly participated in the desecration of
gravesites and markers and failed to exercise reasonable care in
handling the plaintiff’s loved ones remains."

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8372

They want to shelter him from the truth!

[wellst0nev0ter]

9. Two words: Reagan Funeral

that is all.

on edit:

Hmm, looks like Lowery already mentioned the Reagan funeral in the article, my bad.

[Akoto]

10. "Billions more for war, but no more for the poor."

One of the best lines from Reverend Lowery's speech at Mrs. King's funeral, IMO.

[noonwitch]

11. Dems and libs need to stop being defensive about this crap

The standard lines should be "Nobody did or said anything wrong" and "The truth is hard for some to accept". No apologies, no defensiveness, just telling Sean Hannity and the likes to STFU (in broadcast appropriate words, of course) would go a long way toward building the public's confidence in dems and liberals.

Anyone who denies the connection of race and poverty in this country is living in a fantasy world. Even those who watch FOX had to see this in the coverage of the Katrina aftermath. The rest of the world certainly did. If conservative commentators have a problem with accepting this, maybe they should spend some time in my new idea for a reality show- "Survivor-Detroit".

It goes like this-we drop you off in the middle of Detroit with no car, $500 and the clothes on your back. Hell, we'll even give you a shotgun and a round of ammo (if you pass the psychological exam). It should be noted that it is probably not illegal to shoot rats or stray dogs about to attack you, but it is illegal to shoot anything that might be good eating found in the city limits-i.e. pheasants, canadian geese (although why these things are protected when there are so many of them is beyond me). You can eat fish out of the Detroit river, if you dare. For 30 days, you must support yourself. You are allowed to beg, but if you are arrested for vagrancy, trespassing, public urination, etc., you lose. You are allowed to eat at soup kitchens, however, but you cannot reside in a homeless shelter.

Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, etc. all could form a team. I think Sean and Tucker would be eliminated early on, but I could see it coming down to Ann and Bill in the final. Ann, because (I think) she's a woman, she went to UM Law School and probably knows a bit about the geography of Detroit and she's mean. Bill, because nobody is as big of an opportunistic whore as he is.

[jwirr]

13. The repugs complained at the Wellstone funeral also. If they

do no like free speech then they should just stay home. If they want to honor the person being buried then they should realize that we honor them because of who they are and what they stand for. Though.

[EFerrari]

14. Let's start a thread thankiing the good reverend for inspiring and

comforting us when we need it the most.

I watched him speak over and over and each time my spine straightened up a little more.

[spooky3]

15. Suppressing independent views and dissent is UN-American.

Keep on expressing, Rev. Lowery.

[Judi Lynn]

16. I watched it twice. He was outstanding.Nothing is as powerful as the truth

If Republicans didn't want to be noted for the evil they do, they shouldn't disrespect their fellow men/women so viley.

As Truman said, "I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

[EFerrari]

17. Exactly. nt

[AnneD]

18. And there is no need

to apologize for or explain the truth.

[Mnemosyne]

20. An amen for that AnneD! n/t

[brer cat]

19. I have a problem with the WP headline:

Lowery defends his criticism of *. Lowery DIDN'T criticize *, he honored CSK, her life and her beliefs. Funerals are to honor the deceased, not those in attendance. Anyone who didn't want to hear that should not have attended. Period. Amen. WP headline fans the fires.

[stepnw1f]

21. KABOOM!!!!!

:nuke:

[JerseygirlCT]

22. You know, from what I saw, everything about that

service was carefully timed, scripted, organized. I couldn't for one moment believe that Rev. Lowrey said anything that her family didn't want him to say.

And if that's so, then those conservative pundits and the president they love need to just shut it up.

[Wilms]

23. K&R n/t