Recent History Repeats Itself at King's Funeral

As it is wont to do.

In 2002, the Democratic Party descended upon the funeral of Senator Paul Wellstone and turned what ought have been a day of remembrance into a political rally. Vice President Cheney offered his attendance at the time, but his presence was rejected. Apparently, there wasn’t room for the likes of him at the 20,000 large crowd in Williams Arena at the U. The service’s somber tone was hijacked by the likes of Richard Kahn and Wellstone’s sons David and Mark, who roared “we will win!” They were referring to the replacement of former Vice President Walter Mondale, a native Minnesotan, who took Wellstone’s place on the ballot. I personally witnessed the rally on live television on a local station in Alexandria, MN, and was frankly disgusted. My reaction was not uncommon.

The voters in Minnesota responded by electing Republican Senator Norm Coleman to his first term in office, and finally replacing Governor Jesse Ventura with Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. Though the electoral votes in Minnesota ultimately went to John Kerry, that’s hardly unusual given the last Republican to win Minnesota in the Presidential race was President Nixon. However, the election marked a definite movement away from the stranglehold the Democratic party has traditionally had on the great state of Minnesota.

Will the rest of the nation recognize the debacle that occurred during Coretta Scott King’s funeral? Having learned the lesson from the Wellstone funeral, many news broadcasts are focusing merely on the appropriate sentiments voiced by all parties attending: the Bushes, the Clintons, even Ted Kennedy seemed to have relatively benign and appreciable things to say. However, in merely presenting these events, media outlets have missed the obvious political agendas advanced during the funeral service.

Advancing political agendas during a funeral service. I’ll admit, I dislike many things about the Republican Party. I hate the way conservatives are duped into believing Republicans really believe in limited government, free markets, and the spread of Democracy and prosperity to the greatest extent. Clearly, they do not when they continue to grow the government to suit their constituencies and ideas, allow radical Muslims to kill innocent persons exercising free speech and perform cliterectomies and genocide amongst their own peoples, and refusing to protect American industries when other governments exploit our free market systems to their advantage. That being said, I could never see eye to eye with such an amoral party as the United States Democratic Party. To not understand the reasonable bounds of appropriate behavior is to cast aside and shun those who may otherwise support a candidate contrary to their own political beliefs in order to inspire change within the political system.

Bill endorsing Hillary as “his” president is disgusting. “Reverend” Joseph Lowery saying, “we know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there . . . that there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” is disgusting. President Carter’s assertion that “It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps,” visibly alluding to the surveillance program utilized by the Bush administration is disgusting. Not only disgusting, but non-factual and misleading. Equally misleading as his later statement that “the struggle for equal rights is not over. We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.” Need I remind my readers that, proportional to population, whites faced much higher fatality rates in New Orleans and the surrounding areas? Probably. How short our attention spans are.

I only hope that Americans can remember lessons like the Wellstone memorial and King funeral in the coming elections when listening to the bloated Democratic rhetoric.