For Christ’s sake, please watch this. We mentioned earlier that John McCain asked the dead Martin Luther King Jr. to forgive him for hating black people in the 1980s. But we didn’t mention that the crowd booed him loudly when he did this. They also shouted things back at him, like they do in Barack Obama’s black churches that White America Doesn’t Understand. Around 1:10 into this video, some lady shouts out “so what?” and it is comical. [YouTube via TPM Election Central]

Hey so how stupid is John McCain, y’know? Today he gave a speech in Memphis to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was shot there 40 years ago. He took the occasion to apologize to the dead Dr. King for opposing the creation of a national MLK Jr. Day in the 1980s, when he was overtly racist. So now everyone’s a winner, and black people are free! MORE »

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Junior delivered a famous speech at Riverside Church in New York City, his first to overtly tackle the Vietnam war. This was exactly — to the day — a year before he was shot and killed. He didn’t like the direction in which America was heading, and today we celebrate his birth by letting a bunch of people take days (you) or half-days (me) off from work. So maybe ponder these words from Riverside as you watch another Dr., like Dr. Phil, on the teevee. As you kill the day:

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries…. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Now go plant a tree, or maybe build a friendly fence. Just leave the Internet for the afternoon. When you come back, it will be as it always was.

Pretty classy MLK Day front page photo, Washington Times. Pretty classy.

Via FishbowlDC

* Joseph Romm talks about Hell or Highwater at Politics & Prose. Romm is executive director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solution “which helps businesses and states adopt strategies for saving energy and cutting pollution…. He sets out a timeline for global action to reverse greenhouse-gas emission, and he reviews the politics that stand in the way of actions to save the planet.” We say have a mai tai and chillax. [P&P]
* David Lynch’s Inland Empire will terrify you at AFI. 5 & 8PM. [AFI]
* A Study in Her, Esque and Dawn of Man at DC9. $8 at 9PM. [DC9]
* For something honoring MLK, try this list. [WP]

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which has always meant one thing: old white guys babbling abstractly about equality at black churches. Today’s slumming sons of privilege include Senator Chris “Mr. Yuck” Dodd and former Senator Lonesome John Edwards. MORE »

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien is raising the best, most open-minded little anchorling ever, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: MORE »

• “Virtually all” of the National Security Agency’s tips to the F.B.I. in the aftermath of 9/11 “led to dead ends or innocent Americans.” Former prosecutor: “The information was so thin, and the connections were so remote, that they never led to anything.” [NYT]
• Speaker Dennis Hastert is only now publicly addressing the recent scandals; he may be the next target of criticism and scrutiny. [WP]
• Senate Judiciary Committee postpones vote on Samuel Alito until next Tuesday. [WP, WT]
• New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin: “Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it’s destroyed and put stress on this country. . . Surely he doesn’t approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We’re not taking care of ourselves.” [WP]
• Al Gore attacks Bush for “breaking the law repeatedly and insistently.” [WP, WT, USAT]
• American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights plan suits over NSA eavesdropping. [NYT]
• Rep. Bob Ney is gaining recognition from the midst of the Jack Abramoff scandal. [NYT]
• Bush honors Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, asks Americans to “remember the remaining work.” [NYT, WT]
• Laura Bush defends Republican from corruption label, says some lobbying can be important. [WT]
• Sandra Day O’Connor’s unique voice and technique of questioning will be lost in the new court. [USAT]