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Joseph Lowery's benediction.

I missed the benediction during the live-blog, so let me video-blog it now:

1:00: The first thing I notice is that this man is very old. I see that he was born in 1921, and he's been through a lot. I see him as representing a long history and feel inclined to give him the maximum latitude to express whatever it is he feels in his heart.

3:08: "Help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate, on the side of inclusion, not exclusion, tolerance, not intolerance. And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold onto the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family."

4:40: Here's the black/get back/brown/stick around/yellow/mellow part of the prayer that I heard Rush Limbaugh riffing about. Rush didn't like the airing of old grievances when obviously black people are not being held back today and so forth, but I'd say, this was a light-hearted reference to the wrongs of the past, by a man who could have fulminated about the long civil rights struggle, but chose instead to speak almost entirely of love and unity.

Really, I think it's mean-spirited to complain about anything here. It was done very well.

The Caucus live-blogged the media reaction:

Juan Williams, a Fox News contributor [said] ?He is the real deal. There are other people who might say that they were there with Dr. King, and suffered the indignities, but Joe Lowery really did... There are some times in your life that you just think, ?What a country. How can that be? I never thought that would happen.? But there it was, and I just thank God that Joe Lowery was able, in that moment, to talk about the power of the silent tears.?

Full post as published by Althouse on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).