I wonder how MLK, an advocate of nonviolence, would feel about being used as a political weapon every year:
In his first high-profile address since conceding the presidential election, Senator John F. Kerry used Boston’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast yesterday to decry what he called the suppression of thousands of would-be voters last November.
“Thousands of people were suppressed in their efforts to vote. Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways,” the former Democratic nominee told an enthusiastic audience of 1,200 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston.
“In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes. Same voting machines, same process, our America,” Kerry said.
In an e-mail message he sent to his supporters on the day before Congress certified the election results earlier this month, Kerry cited “widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials, and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote” in the battleground state of Ohio.
But he also said his legal team had found no evidence that would alter the outcome. President Bush defeated Kerry in Ohio by 119,000 votes.
No mention of who ran the elections in the Republican and Democratic districts. No mention of the massive increase in voting and registration (up 25% in some key counties in Ohio). Demagoguery doesn’t need facts- it just needs a subvservient press and a willing audience.