Absent Decorum

At the funeral for Coretta Scott King, some Democrats took the opportunity to use this public platform for some Bush-bashing (ex-President Jimmy Carter and Reverend Joseph Lowery, in particular). If your main source of news is the MSM, you probably don’t even know about this. The politicization of Mrs. King’s funeral is all over the blogosphere, however.

On the right side of the blogosphere, the commentary is mostly about the lack of decorum displayed by these Democrats. The feeling is that such political discussion was completely inappropriate at a funeral service. I share this perspective — I believe the eulogies and speeches at a funeral should be about the person who died, and the life that he or she lived. When the funeral is for someone of such accomplishment as Mrs. King, someone held in such high regard by nearly everybody … well, then, appropriate remembrances shouldn’t be hard to come by.

On the left side of the blogosphere, by and large the commentary is more like this example:

From the DailyKos:

Is there anything we do that they do approve of? Besides continuing to give birth to self-hating Toms like the Condoleeza Rices, Clarence Thomases, Kenneth Blackwells, and Lynn Swanns of the world?

Someone not Republican in MSOC’s thread said that folks should have “sat down and been quiet”. Clearly we now must also have white funerals if we are to be accepted as equals.

I’ll alert the media.

In other words, flat-out rejection of the idea that Carter and Lowery said anything inappropriate. On other posts you’ll find outrage at the simple presence of President Bush (whose remarks, by the way, were all about Mrs. King) at the funeral — the general notion is that he is a Republican, and Republicans have no right to be at the funeral of a civil rights leader. As best I understand the logic of these posts, that right is earned only by having participated in civil rights marches in the '60s. Or something like that.

I actually watched the funeral service; I suspect (from their comments) that many writers on both sides of the aisle have not. I was moved by most of the eulogies; shocked by one (the Reverend Lowery), angered by one (Jimmy Carter), and thought several others were quite inappropriate for the occasion.

Once again, my overwhelming reaction is one of sadness for our country, and the state of its political conversation. And in this case, of sadness that the family and friends of the good Mrs. King had to suffer through the politicization of her funeral by Carter, Lowery, and others.

Decorum in our public conversation is a very useful device. The absence of decorum has consequences. Mrs. King’s funeral is one example; in my opinion, we’ve lost forever the chance to celebrate her life publicly and collectively — this is a loss not only for her family, but also for the nation she was a proud citizen of. That chance is not likely to be repeated. In other circumstances, the absence of decorum helps polarize people on opposite sides of a discussion, to the point where a useful, civil debate cannot be held. We all lose on this. There are many positions that liberals hold that I find incomprehensible, and I would love to gain an understanding of how they come to hold those positions. I cherish the unfortunately very rare occasions when I get to take a peek into a liberal’s brain — I always learn something, and sometimes I change my own positions as a result. But the uncivil discussions that dominate our current political context, such occasions remain rare. That’s a sad thing.

So I call for some more decorum, please — knowing that it’s almost certainly a futile gesture. If 9/11 couldn’t shock our political debate into more decorous form, I don’t know what the hell could…