Uber-lefty John Nichols assures his readers in the Capital Times that launching politically motivated attacks from the pulpit of a funeral service is perfectly respectable behavior - and in the case of President Bush it was actually a laudable thing to do:

But don't think that anything untoward actually took place in the Atlanta suburb where thousands gathered to celebrate the life, the work and the politics of Coretta King. The service provided the president with a healthy - if all too rare - dose of reality. Bush's policies are not popular, particularly with the African-American community, and the president needed a gentle reminder of that fact.

Nichols scores additional chutzpah points for arguing that one of the reasons the attacks were justified was President Bush's graceful and dignified response to them:

To his credit, Bush seemed to take the criticism is stride, even shaking hands with and embracing Lowery, Carter and other speakers. And that may be the most important point that can be made about this rare moment in which the president heard actual dissent - as opposed to the manufactured applause that usually accompanies his stage-managed public appearances.

Thus Nichols comes to the tortured conclusion that "Bush and the American discourse surely benefited" from the President of the United States being forced to suffer the indignity of being attacked while simply trying to pay his respects to Mrs. King.

As you might imagine, Jesse Jackson takes a significantly less tactful and sophisticated approach:

Memorial services are meant to pay tribute to the lives and the struggles of the deceased. No one would modify the memorial for Moses to make the pharaoh feel better.

Jackson goes on to suggest that Bush shouldn't have decided to come to the funeral unless he was willing to get what was coming to him:

Bush chose to come to the funeral, but he stands on the other side of history from Dr. King and Coretta...There are those who want to erase the reality that the president was and is on the wrong side of the human rights and justice struggle in America that Dr. King and Coretta led. The president has a right to be on that side of history. What he does not have a right to be is a wolf in sheep's clothing, pretending to be supportive of the civil-rights and human-rights struggle that they lived. Lowery and Carter ensured the funeral service broke through that lie.

This from the man who used the blood of Dr. King (literally) to launch his own career - now a four-decade long odyssey that has arguably done more to enrich himself and members of his family than to achieve Dr. King's dream.