Thank you Rosa Parks, for giving us Condoleezza Rice

Unsuprisingly, GWB dispatched Condoleezza Rice to speak at the Rosa Parks's memorial in Alabama:

Without Rosa Parks' bravery, Rice says she 'would not be standing here today'

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Rosa Parks was remembered Sunday by hundreds of mourners for her defiant act on a city bus that inspired the civil rights movement and helped pave the way for other blacks, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Cascades of roses surrounded Parks' casket in a chapel bearing her name at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, where she was once a member.

Rice said she and others who grew up in Alabama during the height of Parks' activism might not have realized her impact on their lives, "but I can honestly say that without Mrs. Parks, I probably would not be standing here today as secretary of state."

It always bothers me when speakers at memorial service make their speech more about them than the deceased, especially political speakers. It's one thing to note a personal gratitude or connection, and maybe Rice's remarks were more wide-ranging, but Condi is basically saying let's celebrate Parks because I'm Secretary of State.

Even if Rice weren't the public face to Black America of an administration with a 2% approval rating among African Americans, it seems a little arrogant.

Parks was an NAACP officer, an organization Bush refuses to even meet with. Parks worked for Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers from 1965 until retiring in 1988, a Congressman who's been at constant battle with the adminstration Rice serves in, an adminstration which just nominated a Sup Ct candidate with a bad record on racial discrimination issues. Condi helped sell and continues to defend a war with a disproportionate impact on African Americans.

There were many kind and appropriate things Condi could (and may) have said. But it was the wrong occasion to hold herself up as a triumph for Parks's legacy.

For a take on Rice, see Eugene Robinson's column from last week:

What Rice Can't See

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Page A21

Like a lot of African Americans, I've long wondered what the deal was with Condoleezza Rice and the issue of race. How does she work so loyally for George W. Bush, whose approval rating among blacks was measured in a recent poll at a negligible 2 percent? How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?

[...]

As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, "If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was."

The civil rights movement came from the inside? I always thought the Edmund Pettus Bridge was outside.