California Conservative

During Dick Durbin’s response to President Bush’s radio response, he used Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday to play politics. How typical. Here’s how he turned an otherwise honorable speech into a political ploy:

I wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King would think about America today? I’m sure he would be pleased with the progress we have made on racial justice. He sure would be proud of Barack Obama, who keynoted the Democratic National Convention and now serves as my colleague from Illinois. He won in my state by one of the largest margins in the history of the Land of Lincoln. But Dr. King would know, we all know, that we haven’t reached the Promised Land. There are a lot of other changes in America that would trouble Dr. King.

In his last book, his last words to America, here’s what he said: “There is nothing wrong with power. The problem is that, in America, the power is so unequally divided.” That is certainly true in America and you can see it in Washington today. Powerful corporate special interests control the agenda and people who don’t have paid lobbyists really don’t have much of a voice. To these power players, the challenges facing America are not problems to solve, but opportunities to exploit. We’re all paying the price for that.

Instead of a reliable Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors, we have a complicated mess that wastes tens of billions of dollars on giveaways to pharmaceutical companies and big insurance companies. Instead of a strategy for real energy independence for America, we end up with a plan that includes $10 billion in subsidies to big oil and gas companies, companies that are already enjoying the highest profits in their histories.

Durbin had the opportunity to give a truly uplifting speech but chose to play politics with it. Instead of talking about lofty goals, he chose to talk about all that thinks is wrong with America. Instead of giving people hope, he chose to focus on despair.

While King saw the evil of racism, he also saw that there was hope. His was a message of fighting against injustice by doing the right thing and by being trusting in God’s providence. That isn’t visible in Durbin’s speech at all.

The mark of a great leader wasn’t in just seeing the difficulties but also in recognizing the path forward to the realization of a great vision. King was the embodiment of seeing that great vision forward and marching towards it with confidence and pride.

From what I’ve read, Dr. King was the embodiment of realist and idealist. There’s no question that he saw things for what they really were. That’s why he started the Civil Rights movement. But he proved himself to be the ultimate idealist by lifting up peoples’ spirits, especially through his visionary speeches.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin: “MLK Bash-Bush Day”

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 10:29 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, DNC, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.