Atlanta’s channel 11 news has a live feed.

What I’ve noticed is that when the Presidents entered there was JUBULENT clapping when Bill Clinton was shown (George H. W. Bush was also in view) and when Bill Clinton was shown with Jimmy Carter there was more JUBULENT clapping. When President George W. Bush was shown there was silence. Then Bill Clinton was shown again near Ted (I lost her in the lake) Kennedy and again there was JUBULENT clapping. Then they showed President George W. Bush again and again there was silence. It was like the camera was going back and forth between them to catch the response. I guess the fact there was just silence for President George W. Bush was a form of respect considering what could have occurred.

Of course the singing is great. And New Birth has the mass choir singing. Byron Cage led the initial praise and worship.

update (2/7/2006 12:54PM ET): Bishop Long opened with some kind words, another song was sang (Psalm121), then scripture reading and now a solo (Our father). The solo is being sung by Miriam Fawaz, who is a great classical singer.

update (2/7/2006 1:00PM ET): After the solo Bishop Long asked the Civil Rights leaders to stand and of course there was applause. Then he introduced President Bush with a very respectful introduction. WOW! Great applause! I mean there was loud applause for Bush! Now Bush is speaking. He mentioned “now she leans on everlasting arms…”

While speaking Bush almost had a word fumble, but he was able to keep flowing. Bush spoke against the past evils of segregation and how strong CS King was in the fight for equality under the law.

update (2/7/2006 1:08PM ET): President Bush closed with “Our sister Coretta is on the other shore, at peace, at rest, at home.” (You can get the full text of President Bush’s remarks here.)

Now Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue is speaking.

Governor Purdue finished and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is speaking. She mentioned the “foolishness of war”. Are the Leftist shots starting?…

update (2/7/2006 1:17PM ET): Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is done. She is the first to mention anything that really leans to the Left politically, but she kept it fairly clean. A delegate from South Africa is speaking now. The delegate is done, now another classical styled solo by a different singer.

update (2/7/2006 1:30PM ET): Dr. Dorothy Height is speaking now.

A running theme with several of the speakers is “we’ve made progress, but have a long way to go”. As if we moved from living under rocks to living under trees. These folks need to acknowledge that IT ALL HAS BEEN WON. The only person who actually said “we won” was the delegate from South Africa, in speaking about efforts in her own nation.

Sherry Frank of the “American Jewish Committee” is speaking now. She mentioned how CS King signed a letter asking Iraq to stop firing scuds into Israel and that she recognized Israel’s right to exists.

update (2/7/2006 1:46PM ET): Ted (I lost her in the lake) Kennedy is up to speak now. Very loud applause. Ugh….

(President Bush is still present, keeping an eye on Ted 😀 .)

Ted Kennedy brought up “the call” made by Bobby Kennedy to free Martin Luther King Jr. from prison. Loud applause. Too bad Ted never made a CALL to save his employee when she was drowning in a lake!

Ted does look sober 🙂 .

update (2/7/2006 1:55PM ET): John Conyers is up speaking now. He mentioned 3 planes of Congresspeople came with him and had them stand. Lots of Congresspeople! They almost take up one entire section of floor seating by themselves.

update (2/7/2006 2:00PM ET): Joseph Lowery is up to speak.

With 2 hours in the books I’ve got to go. This ends my live blogging of the funeral. It is still being webcast live by Atlanta’s channel 11 news.

WOW! But then again they always liked having rules where somebody gets ahead of the line instead of waiting their turn 😀 .

Thanks for the link to the program! I’ll have to print myself a color copy.

I should also point out that CS King’s baby daughter Bernice King will be doing the Eulogy. That is just deep!

update (2/7/2006 4:05PM ET): It seems just as I got off from Live Blogging, the Liberal nuts got their “Bush Bashing” ON. I had to go, plus Joseph Lowery makes me sick. But he got the real Bush bashing started with this:

Expose the Left has video of Lowery in action.

And from there it continued! (The SFgate.com article has the sequence of events a little out of order, but they did capture the pertinent details.)

Expose the Left has video of Jimmy Carter in action too. Funny how he never mentioned it was a DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION in power then. It would have been better if he had offered an apology for his party’s actions!

Of course all that helped get the crowd into a more partisan spirit!

Just when I thought there was hope for having a funeral with Lefties without partisan shots.

update (2/7/2006 10:35PM ET): Some powerful commentary from The Cultural Strategist:

It’s a shame that tonight instead of everyone talking about the good works of Coretta Scott King, a few idiots have turned it into just another night of partisan political debate.

update (2/10/2006 2:03PM ET): Now the “reverend” Lowery claims that he was only doing what he was asked to do. Given he was supposed to do a Civil Rights and Human Rights Tribute. He even asks “what should I have said”? This is a clever attempt by Lowery to cover his dirt! Joseph Lowery spoke for over 30 minutes. He took a few minutes out of that long winded speech to take shots at Bush. He could find over 30 minutes of other things to speak about in his “Civil Rights and Human Rights Tribute”, but acts like his jabs at Bush were him just doing what “he was asked to do”. What a crock! Also, there were A LOT of speakers at the funeral. Almost all of them offered tributes related to human and civil rights, including President Bush himself! Lowery is a nut and he proves his time has past daily.