Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter blasted Ex-President Barack Obama for the wordplay in his eulogy for Congressman John Lewis, saying he took the nation back to the segregated 60s.
While Obama couldn’t summon enough courage to speak President Trump’s name, there was no mistaking his criticism of the president in what sounded more like a stump speech than a eulogy.
As arrogant and divisive as ever, the former president used the occasion to push the myth of voter suppression.
“Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, by targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick,” he proclaimed.
Never mind that mourners packed many of the pews at Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta, Ga.
“Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt showed a video of those comments, which she said “sounded more like a campaign event or a rally,” before asking King to comment.
“Well, I guess we should have expected that the left, including President Obama, would take that occasion for a political moment,” King said.
“They’ll grab at any opportunity, that’s to be understood. I have chosen not to politicize the death of Congressman Lewis, but to remember him as a peaceful, nonviolent warrior and encourage everyone to resolve our conflicts peacefully.”
“However, President Obama, with wordplay, took us back to 1960’s and that was a time when segregation was still on the books, segregation was still legal, and those in power, some of them, were trying to enforce that and keep that,” she added.
King also noted that there is a “totally distinct difference” between what took place in the 60s and the efforts today to protect communities from violent rioters, who people on the left, to include Obama in his eulogy, characterize as “peaceful protesters.”
As for the voter suppression narrative, King rejected it altogether.
“Also, implying without calling any names, he was very clever not to call any names, saying that there was an effort to undermine the voting process,” she said. “You know, actually President Trump is saying, ‘People, please pay attention, we do want you to vote. Use your absentee ballots, go to the polls.’”
“President Trump is not trying to suppress the vote,” King said.
“As a matter of fact, you can see in my community, I’m telling everybody, ‘Make sure you vote, register to vote. Pastors and leaders, encourage your people to vote.’ We do want people to vote safely and we need the voting process to be fair.”
In the end, she dismissed Obama’s eulogy as little more than political grandstanding.
“And so to politicize the funeral of a peaceful warrior, I mean, I guess they grabbed at an opportunity to be political,” she said.
