caterwauling

CNN's Miles O'Brien and, according to Daily Kos, Imus have been in a tizzy this morning about the speeches that they say "politicized" Coretta Scott King's funeral.

You might recall that the same thing was said about Paul Wellstone's memorial service.

It's total nonsense. Both King and Wellstone dedicated their lives to their ideals. King could have crept away in fear and defeat after her husband was murdered by the very hatred he was trying to help us all overcome. But she instead picked herself up and continued along the path that they had walked together, bringing others along.

It would have been wrong to suggest that the work that she committed her life to was done. Now that she is gone, she would not want us to pack up her ideals, along with her things.

Daily Kos is so annoyed by the "caterwauling" that he is putting out advance notice that he wants his funeral politicized (in fact, he would like Bill Clinton to speak).

What else is a funeral anyway but the marking of the passing of a life? And what else is a life but the passions and causes that fill it? People who make demarcations between politics and personal life have always struck me as odd ducks. How we spend our time, what work we do, what purchases we make, the people we hang out with . . . the millions of little decisions we make over a lifetime add up to a political stance, defined or note. The personal and the political are seamlessly one."