by Sanford Levinson

I suppose one ought to accentuate the positive in George W. Bush's participation in the ceremony marking the memorialization of Martin Luther King in Washington, but there is also truly something indecent in his claiming, even for one second, to pay any respect to Dr. King's legacy. This is most obviously the case with regard to the issue of war. We tend to forget that King was a pacifist and that he had paid an immense political cost with the Johnson administration because of his ever-increasing opposition to the Vietnam war (a stance not shared, incidentally, by other Black leaders of the time, including Roy Wilkins and Bayard Rustin, who were more willing to cut Johnson a lot of slack on the war). One can only imagine what King would have thought of the Iraq venture and the defense by the U.S. of its methods of interrogation. But there's also the little matter of poverty and class. I am currently finishing, prior to reviewing it for the History Book Club, an absolutely marvelous book by Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, King's Last Campaign, about the garbage-workers' strike in Memphis that ultimately cost King his life; I cannot recommend it highly enough. King's participation was linked with his attempt, largely unsuccessful, to drum up support for the Poor People's Campaign, a march on Washington to object to the unwillingness of the government (remember, this is LBJ's Great Society) genuinely to wage war on poverty. King was more than aware that passing anti-discrimination laws meant relatively little to those really at the bottom of the class structure. It is impossible to imagine that King would have had anything other than deserved contempt for the modern Republican Party epitomized by Bush, with its embrace of increasing inequality and endless breaks for the rich. Perhaps he would have accepted the argument that some conservative Republicans--this case was made by David Brooks in behalf of Rick Santorum--actually care about the poor, though King would almost certainly have disagreed with their entirely-market-based solutions. But I doubt that he would grant that Bush has anything more than a sentimental regard to the havenots. Recall the speech so perfectly caught in Michael Moore's film, when Bush says (something like) "Some people call you the rich, I call you my base." No doubt all societies operate on the basis of hypocrisy, especially by national leaders who must profess to respect people for whose views they have no use at all. And maybe it's better that way. (This is clearly related to Cass Sunstein's posting on the "graciousness" of Santorum's concession speech. I tend to agree with one of his critics that this simply indicates the basic mendaciousness of Santorum's campaign, for if he were evey close to serious in his portrayal of Casey as basically a clear and present danger to American survival, he should never have told his supporters that Casey was really a fine man who would make a fine senator. It's one thing to say that the popular verdict must be accepted; it's another thing actually to praise someone whose views were regularly portrayed in almost apocayptic terms.) Martin Luther King now serves as an all-purpose symbol and therefore, for most Americans, a symbol of almost nothing at all concrete. In his time, and especially at the end of his life, he was engaging in a prophetic form of social criticism that we have chosen to forget while enjoying the spectacle of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in warm embrace.