Matalin Calls Civil Rights Leaders “Race Baiters and Hustlers‿
GOP operative Matalin calls civil rights leaders who spoke at Coretta Scott King’s funeral “race baiters and hustlers".
After watching video clips of the funeral service for Coretta Scott King of Rev. Joseph Lowery, a renowned civil rights activist who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter, eulogizing Mrs. King, Mary Matalin said their comments were offensive, un-Christian, un-southern, and not about President Bush but that they were “an insult to the memory of both Coretta Scott King and Dr. King.".
Matalin, the one-time Senior Advisor to the Vice President Dick Cheney, appeared on the February 8, 2006 episode of “Hannity and Colmes" to discuss the funeral of King and attempted to lay blame on Democrats by inexplicably claiming that “it’s very illustrative of where the Democratic Party is -- the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is today. It was completely without facts. It was ignorant. It was no hope, all hate. So it's sad."
Matalin continued, “I think these civil rights leaders are nothing more than racists and … they’re keeping their neighborhoods and their African America brothers enslaved, if you will, by continuing to let them think that … they’re victims, that the whole system is against them."
When co-host Alan Colmes recalled a similar eulogy given by Dr. King for the young victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963 he asked Matalin if Dr. King was being insulting or un-Christian? Matalin responded that Colmes was “comparing a time of great civil rights unrest with a time where there's been great progress made for all Americans, and African- Americans in particular." She continued by accusing the civil rights leaders of being “race-baiters and hustlers" saying that they are propagating the “notion amongst the African-American community that we are a nation of racists and that they are victims...and they’re enslaved by us. “ Colmes protested saying that is not what they said, to which Matalin responded “That’s exactly what they are saying."