Bush Gets Standing Ovation at King Funeral

RUSH: We just had a Brokeback moment in the Coretta Scott King funeral because the pastor of the church, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, which, according to — I’m just sharing with you what it says here — the LA Times, “King Suburban Funeral Site Raises Some Concerns.” So there’s some ease about the choice of the church, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The pastor there is Bishop Eddie Long, and Bishop Eddie just finished wowing the crowd and introduced President Bush — and President Bush strode to the podium, embraced Bishop Eddie, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He just gave him a kiss on the cheek! It was a Brokeback moment. No wonder the civil rights guys… Now, we’ve been watching Bush’s speech, and Bush during the speech was getting some polite applause, and when he finished, he got a standing ovation from the… What? Ten thousand is the seating capacity of this church? Ten thousand.
He got a standing ovation. He just now finished. Now, we know what Bill Clinton will talk about during the funeral. One of the reasons that Bush was getting polite applause, and one of the reasons that Bush got a standing O is because he talked about Dr. King, and he talked about Coretta Scott King. We know when Bill Clinton gets his turn, what he’ll talk about: himself. He will talk about Bill Clinton. Let me try. In fact, let me give you a wild guess as to one of Bill Clinton’s 35 themes will be. (Bill Clinton impression) “You know, when I was growing up in Arkansas long before I even knew that there was a Hillary anywhere, my buddies and I, we watched Dr. King struggle. We come home from those burned churches and we’d pass them by on the way home from school saw those churches burning and we watched Dr. King struggle we watched him march in Selma we watched him march elsewhere, all of over the place. I remember turning to my buddy Joe Bob.”
“I said, ‘Joe Bob, let’s march down the middle of Hope,’ my little town. ‘Let’s carry signs in support of Dr. King.’ We were only five. We were only six. Maybe ten. I forget how old. We were away ahead of our time, though, and we were there, and so my buddy Joe Bob and I, we got our signs, and we marched down the middle of Main Street of Hope, Arkansas. People were watching us, wondering what we were doing, two little southern white boys marching down the street for no reason whatsoever in their minds, but we were at one with Dr. King.” Now, of course what Clinton won’t mention is that his mentor was J. William Fulbright, Senate Democrat, a segregationist who opposed everything about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Greetings, folks, welcome back, it’s the award-winning, thrill-packed, ever exciting, increasingly popular, growing-by-leaps-and-bounds Rush Limbaugh program here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

Oh. Something else I think that Bill Clinton will do, “I’d like to apologize here to all of you — and particularly those of you in the family of Dr. King. I want to apologize for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and JFK for bugging Dr. King as they were searching for evidence that he was sleeping around on his wife. I don’t know that they ever had one of those El Caminos with AstroTurf in the back like I did, but I want to apology to the whole civil rights community, and I want to apologize to the King family to the efficiency illegal wiretaps that President Bush is now himself performing on other Americans. That’s what Jimmy Carter says, and so I want to apologize for this because we all know now it was wrong.” So let’s see. Let’s see if that’s some of what we get (laughing) from Bill Clinton. It’s going to take about (interruption). Will he shut up? What’s your guess as to how long Clinton’s speech will go? Ten minutes? Well, President Bush didn’t go much longer than that. If Clinton does less than a half hour, Snerdley, I’ll buy you a Sony camera (laughing) if he does less than a half hour.
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RUSH: I’m watching the funeral for Coretta Scott King. It reminds me, we had a story last week. I think it was the AP, but it was civil rights observers, political analysts and observers. They sit around, these political observers observing that there’s a problem in the civil rights community because with the death of Coretta Scott King and not long ago the death of Rosa Parks, just who is there that the civil rights movement, as currently constituted has to, to look backwards in order to find glory, that there’s nobody in the future. They’re just like the rest of the Democratic Party. They’re just stuck. In these people’s case, some of them are stuck 200 years ago, others are stuck 50 years, but they’re stuck in the past somewhere — and you can’t help but notice this as you watch the funeral because there in the front row, separated by a woman — I don’t know who she is — you find the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Now, in all candor, what is the future of a movement with those two guys at the helm? They represent the past. They have not modernized. You look on the Republican side, though, and as we pointed out last week: If you want to find out the future for black Americans? If you want role models, if you want icons, they’re all on the Republican side these days. Well, you gotta I guess include Barack Obama but McCain is trying to take him out. We’ll see how that goes. You’ve got Condoleezza Rice. You’ve got Ken Blackwell in Ohio. You’ve got Michael Steele in Maryland, and you’ve got Lynn Swann running for governor in Pennsylvania. Now, the Steelers’ parade is today. I don’t know if it’s still going on, but there’s a huge outpouring.
You know what the ratings for the Super Bowl in Pittsburgh were, like 88% — 88% of everybody watching television was watching the Super Bowl. I mean, the Steelers are that town, and that town is the Steelers — and Lynn Swann is at the parade and he’s at it podium speaking today along with other dignitaries of the Rooney family and Steelers players, and as Swann is attempting to praise this team for its accomplishments, the crowd is going nuts, shouting, “Governor! Governor! Governor!” and also in the audience is the governor, “Fast Eddie” Rendell, who is the current governor. He has to show up at this thing, too, and the crowd is screaming, “Governor! Governor! Governor!” and of course Rendell is having to sit there and applaud.
And Swann is trying to quiet them down. “No, no, no. This is not about me. This is about this team.”
“Governor! Governor!”
You know, when Al Sharpton shows up somewhere, you don’t hear cheers, “President! President!” You don’t hear that. You say, “Where’s the check? The people from the hotel want the check.” That’s what you here. So it’s just obvious watching this today, that that story from the AP last week, there was a lot of weight to it.
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