On Deaf Ears

LA Times reporting Bush Gets an Earful at Coretta King’s Funeral, but if the words fall on deaf ears, they’ll be of no effect. Nevertheless, I was fortunate to catch the moment on C-SPAN and it was truly one of the great political moments I’ve ever seen on television. I could barely believe I was seeing and hearing it as the courageous Joseph Lowery took the podium:<blockquote>The most overtly partisan remarks came from the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a King protege and longtime Bush critic, who noted Coretta King’s opposition to the war in Iraq and criticized Bush’s commitment to boosting the poor.

“She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar,” he said. “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.”</blockquote>It was a brilliant moment; absolutely brilliant, followed not long after by Maya Angelou’s:<blockquote>“We owe something from this minute on, so that this gathering is not just another footnote on the pages of history,” said Angelou, a former U.S. poet laureate who sang some of her comments in a traditional style of the Southern black church.</blockquote>