Since when do Republicans care about funerals? They create them on a daily basis for our poor boys in Iraq. Since when do they care about Black Civil Rights leaders?  There was no crying after the funeral of Rosa Parks last November. And Bush has even refused to personally address the NAACP.

But when King and Queen George Bush have to sit on stage through the Mother of all Snaps, they tend to get a little peeved.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who worked for decades with the Kings, made the following remarks during Coretta King’s marathon, 6-hour funeral yesterday (as Bush Jr. and Laura sat on stage, trying to look interested):

"She (Coretta King) extended Martin’s message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there (applause and cheering). But Coretta knew, and we know, 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."

This was no different that the remarks Lowery made at Rosa Park’s funeral last November:

50 million people in this country with no health insurance. That’s a weapon of mass destruction. Minimum wage is a weapon of mass destruction. And in the spirit of Rosa Parks, as I take my seat, we must sacramentally understand that drug addiction and drug selling is a weapon of mass self-destruction, and in the spirit of Rosa Parks, we must rise up and sacramentally share that addiction. Finally, we must understand in the spirit of Rosa Parks, in the spirit of saintly womanhood, we must teach our young people as children to stop having children; that’s a weapons of mass self-destruction.

Lowery receive much applause each time he invoked the "no weapons of mass destruction" phase. 

Even former President Jimmy Carter took hits from the defensive Right.  Regarding the slow and misguided response to Hurricane Katrina, Carter stated, "We only have to recall the color of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

Carter also brought up that the Kings were victims of "secret government wiretapping and surveillance" and that Coretta and Martin King has the "sanctities of their marriage interfered with" because of this "unlawful surveillance". 

Right on, Jimmy.  Republican commentators are spinning in their chairs over that one. Republican spinsters tossing around accusations of unappropriate behavior at a funeral probably all thought the Civil Rights movement was just a big pain in the pocketbook.

Finally, God bless Coretta King and Rosa Parks.  They were brave women of the Civil Rights movement whose peaceful actions made history - without money and without absolute power.  If I were lying in my casket and heard Lowery speaking so boldly about our situation today, I think I would be proud to have invoked such a debate.