Four Presidents and a Funeral (PEGGY NOONAN)

[norml]

PEGGY NOONAN



Four Presidents and a Funeral
A spirited tribute to Mrs. King--and to democracy.

Friday, February 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

Listen, I watched the funeral of Coretta Scott King for six hours Tuesday, from the pre-service commentary to the very last speech, and it was wonderful--spirited and moving, rousing and respectful, pugnacious and loving. The old lions of the great American civil rights movement of the 20th century were there, and standing tall. The old lionesses, too. There was preaching and speechifying and at the end I thought: This is how democracy ought to be, ought to look every day--full of the joy of argument, and marked by the moral certainty that here you can say what you think.

There was nothing prissy, nothing sissy about it. A former president, a softly gray-haired and chronically dyspeptic gentleman who seems to have judged the world to be just barely deserving of his presence, pointedly insulted a sitting president who was, in fact, sitting right behind him. The Clintons unveiled their 2008 campaign. A rhyming preacher, one of the old lions, a man of warmth and stature, freely used the occasion to verbally bop the sitting president on the head.

So what? This was the authentic sound of a vibrant democracy doing its thing. It was the exact opposite of the frightened and prissy attitude that if you draw a picture I don't like, I'll have to kill you.

It was: We do free speech here.

That funeral honored us, and the world could learn a lot from watching it. The U.S. government should send all six hours of it throughout the World Wide Web and to every country on earth, because it said more about who we are than any number of decorous U.N. speeches and formal diplomatic declarations.


snip


http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007937

[Punkingal]

1. Well, she took a few shots at the Clintons...

But overall it looks like she was on her meds when she wrote this one.

[Webster Green]

2. I just noticed that Cheney was there too.....

Heh!

What a dick!

[asjr]

3. Someone must have injected Peggy with

a dose of reality!

[Nomen Tuum]

4. Piggy still whizzed on thie Clintons

Piggy Nooner is just such a cheap 2 bit whore

[classysassy]

5. Mizz Piggy

is an expensive ho.

[Little Star]

6. I think she wizzed on Pres. Carter too.

She forgot to mention that the shrub was in a no win situation. He lost if he didn't show up and got the spanking he deserved when he did. Thank god for those patriots, those civil rights leaders. We need them more now than ever. Our country is being taken over and half the population has been hypnotized. By the time they snap out of it we may end up with a king.

[spiderbiter]

7. I appreciate Noonan's positive angle on it...

However, except in anonymity, whatever one says CAN say more about the person speaking it than to whom it refers...