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Edited on Wed Aug-28-13 02:39 PM by No Elephants
50 years ago, the day was an outpouring from heart and soul. It prodded the conscience, but also moved, inspired and soared.
Today, I found strident and contrived and decidedly earth bound, at best.
Also could have done without Bubba sternly pulling out of nowhere that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been upset today to "hear people whining about gridlock." Yeah, right. That's what just MLK said to Johnson-"Gridlock, Lyndon"? No worries. We've waited 300 years. We can wait another 50 to 100, easy."
Frankly, it sounded a lot more like the WH than it sounded like MLK, Jr. or even Bubba. In fact, a lot of the speeches sounded very much like each other and many sounded like WH/New Democrat talking points. Plus a lot of stuff about not looking for government support, raising your own kids, etc. Had anything like that come from you and me, we might well have been accused of being racist and of disrespecting the memory of Dr. King. Also a lot of "whatever is, is good," "don't rock the boat," "don't expect anything from Washington." Or, and don't bother marching literally, just do it by living a good, dutiful life." Just a hair short of "eat your peas." IMO, Carter's speech was more from the heart than almost anyone else's.
I thought the way that the commentators summed up the day made it sound better than it actually was.
On the bright side, McClurkin didn't sing. (Or, if he did, I did not hear him. Close enough.)
Tonight on MSBNC, starting at 8 pm Eastern: The full speech MLK, Jr. gave 50 years ago, uninterrupted. If you have to choose between watching that and watching reruns of today's events, guess which I'd recommend watching.
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