Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Good Old Fashioned Revival

At first I was annoyed that Mrs. King's funeral was taking media attention away from the Gonzales hearings. Then I watched the re-run on C-Span last night.

My God.

For the first time since election night 2000, I am filled with hope. Carter's and Clinton's oratories were masterful, spurring standing ovations every time they implicitly called out the Bushies for their violations of civil rights, their neglect of the poor, their unjust war in Iraq. I hope people were watching, and listening.

Of course, if they were watching Fox, they just got Sean Hannity screaming about uncouth liberals not knowing how to be respectful at a funeral service. The code words are sounding more and more shrill, the veil increasingly thin. At least Bush I had the grace, after observing he'd never been to a funeral quite like this, to go with the flow and join in the spirit of his surroundings rather than stubbornly sticking to his conservative Episcopalian template. And Clinton, who followed him, matched his grace with a good-natured tip of the hat--"not bad for the 'Frozen Chosen'".

Hope. And work for change.

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