Monday marked the official observance of Martin Luther King Day, making this an ideal time to compare the President’s Brave New words with those of the eloquent Dr. King:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. — Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. — George Bush to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, June 2003.
Last week, The New York Times reported that President Bush “hastily planned” a visit to King’s grave, and then, while he was in the neighborhood, attended a long-scheduled $2,000-a-person Republican fundraiser. The brief visit to King’s tomb allowed Bush to label the entire trip “an official state visit,” thus subsidizing his re-election campaign stop at taxpayer expense.
Rev. Timothy McDonald, an organizer of Atlanta’s ceremony said, “It’s the epitome of insult. He’s really coming here for the fundraiser. The King wreath was an afterthought.” A group of 700+ protesters voiced their displeasure at the hypocrisy of Bush’s visit, pointing out the diametrically opposed positions of the two men regarding war. Demonstrators were kept across the street from the wreath-laying photo-op, blocked by a line of city buses brought in to keep protesters out of sight of the President and photographers. The buses were needed because the demonstrators had successfully defied police and Secret Service attempts to keep them several blocks away in a designated so-called “free speech zone.”
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
No President has ever done more for human rights than I have. — George W. Bush, 2004 interview with New Yorker writer Ken Auletta.
Last year, Bush marked the King holiday with a visit to First Baptist Church in Landover, MD, a largely African-American church where he said “there is still work to do” to fulfill Martin Luther King’s dream. Apparently, another year, another mission accomplished.
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2004.
