mlk

Couldn't we have at least one day out of the year not spent evoking the legacy of Dr. King? I kind of knew where we were headed when clues to the long answers in this mornings crossword puzzle were; King of Hollywood, King of the Wild Frontier, King of Swing, and King of the links (kind of an extension of Saturday's puzzle where the answers were; Dr. Kildare, Dr. Feelgood, Dr. Zhivago, and Dr. Who[ever]- and VBIRHZ CSRWOI FHZM, KI. made the cryptogram no challenge at all). But the capper was listening to Wolf Blitzer hypothetically dragging him from the grave for one of the Democratic candidates to claim his endorsement (and I thought that the Frederick Douglass quote used earlier by Ms. Clinton to define her battle to fulfill Dr. King's legacy was going to be the gallsiest moment of my day). But why not dig up Thurgood Marshall, and for that matter Malcolm X, to beg their endorsement? Perhaps American history searches only among the pacifistic bids for black empowerment to define the civil rights movement; hoping that the memory of black militancy will just go away and skipping over Justice Marshall's legacy, who as Chief Council for the NAACP won 29 of the 32 cases which he argued in front of his predecessors on the Supreme Court. (Look up "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka", then tell me your best lawyer joke.) I'll save my most savory question to the long-dead to ask Justice Marshall for his musings on Clarence Thomas. Not to take anything away from the dreamers; the Republicans have had a free hand at making theirs come true for some time now. Lest my wandering commentary not point clearly enough to the idiotic Blitzer as the cynosure of my sarcasm, be assured that even were he not an on-air personality with an abundance of facial hair AND despite his unfortunate given name, AND the combination of the two, I could not let such a question enter the public dialog uncommented on. (Luckily, only Edwards took the bait). If Dr. King were to come back to weigh in on anything at all, I would expect he would have surfaced years ago to protest the right-wing takeover of Southern Baptist theological seminaries, an issue perhaps closer to home than even the secular brand of hypocrisy- though I'm not convinced that the one isn't inextricably tied to the other. As long as 'folks' are trying on the idea of a [non-white male] President, couldn't we adopt an idea promoted this past month in the funny papers? Let's install a "Shut Up Zone" around the poor Doctor, and let our candidates march the last couple of miles on their own.