Unions Hijack MLK Legacy in Assassination Day Exploitation

I suggested this morning that Barack Obama, in launching his 2012 reelection effort on April 4th, the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., "might have used this day to remind Americans of his commitment" to family values and to the restoration of the black family in American life. Absent that, the president's launch frankly seems a bit disrespectful. But that's nothing compared to the big labor unions, who're shamelessly exploiting King's death to make strained comparison's between the assassination and today's controversies over unions and state budget crises, etc. See the Soros-funded Think Progress, "43 Years Ago Today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Died Fighting For The Rights Of Public Workers" (via Memeorandum). And at the AFL-CIO, "We Are One Honors MLK, ‘A Champion for All’."

They're calling April 4th a "national day of solidarity." It's certainly true that Dr. King's vision placed him on the left on occasion, but his overall program of individual liberty was an affirmation of this nation's founding --- and inherently conservative. It's thus horribly shameful for progressives to hijack the King legacy as if they own it. "Solidarity"? Civil rights protesters marched against Democrats throughout the South who for decades had disenfranchised blacks and had denied them of equal protection of the laws. Dr. King carried out the vision of Abraham Lincoln, and President Lyndon Johnson warned that he was consigning the Democrats to minority status by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's just sickening to see progressives not just cheapen the legacy, but to conflate this nation's historic legacy of victory over discrimination with the union entitlement culture that's bankrupting the states.