Last Wednesday, while sitting in the waiting room of the VA hospital, the King funeral was being broadcast live. Although I was delirious from the misery of my flu symptoms, questioning my very will to live, I was able to notice the difference in the way both Presidents' Bush conducted themselves compared to Carter et al.
I cannot tell you how many liberal friends of mine think I am "too political," or "too opinionated." Lets analyze that for a moment shall we? This idea that conservatives are the ones who are too boorish and opinionated about their views by necessity forces us to revisit a problem I dealt with in an earlier post about the media and liberal bias.
If one merely accepts what they hear on TV, including the local and national news, the sitcoms, reality shows and dramas the default position about how the world works is "liberal." You must step outside the box you have placed yourself in by getting your information about life from (basically) one source if you wish to be exposed to any other way of thinking. What passes for political discourse on the evening news is "should poor people be given food to eat and a place to sleep or should they be tortured and dipped in shit like the evil Republicans want to do to them?"
This way, your identity as a "good" person is inextricably tied to your political positions. Especially when they have to do with vague sounding concepts like "women's rights" and "social justice."
Is there someone one on the right who is against "women's rights?" Is there a serious politician in the Republican Party who has suggested that we repeal the rights of blacks or women to vote? If they have, let me be the first to say, "you are not welcome in my party."
But this is exactly what is believed by the vast majority of the left who call themselves "the middle" in this country. Liberals=kind, generous, care about children. Conservatives=greedy, hateful, angry, threatened by women. This provides the backdrop for a discussion about how a conservative can be labeled "too political." If these labels stick, than ANY opinion offered by conservatives is "too... fill in the blank." It's only too much if you disagree.
Which brings me back to the Coretta Scott King funeral. Because I was trapped by the draconian VA hospital system, I watched the entire thing. Not once did either Bush mention a policy, an idea, or a complaint. It was all praise for the deceased. Like a eulogy. How silly of them.
With the exception of Bill Clinton, every speaker from the left had something to complain about vis a vis the Bush administration. Jimmy Carter suggested that Bush's response to Katrina was of course, racially motivated. Even though, in the after math we know that the actual numbers were not reflected by the media's severe over coverage of black victims. In fact, Katrina was actually racially biased against whites in Louisiana. IN PROPORTION! What should we do about that?
Unfortunately, nobody watching even noticed how inappropriate the comments from Carter were. Instead, one of the secretaries sitting near by said "mmmm mm! Now aint it a shame that somebody like Coretta King had to die to get them people in the same room together?"
All the lemmings in the room responded with the usual silliniess "oh yeah. mmm hmmm." (You are not allowed to disagree with a middle-aged black woman in public, while the Coretta King funeral is on. Anything she says is self-evidently a brilliant deduction, and she should be elected queen of the universe because she represents "regular folk" who apparently have a direct link to common sense and probably God himself.)
Why is it a shame? Why is it even a surprise? We all knew the major Republicans would show up. It's the decent thing to do. And of course, any opportunity to call them names like racist, bigoted, homophobic warmongers is certainly not going to be passed up by the likes of Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
