A Fitting Funeral for Mrs. King

· The Rev. Joseph Lowery said, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. . . . But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right here. . . . Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor. . . . Our marvelous presidents and governors come to mourn and praise . . . but in the morning will words become deeds that meet need?"

· Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin described Mrs. King as singing "for liberation, she sang for those who had no earthly reason to sing a song," using a voice heard "from the tin-top roofs of Soweto to the bomb shelters of Baghdad."

· Former president Jimmy Carter, aware of the current debate over domestic spying, said, "It was difficult for [the Kings] personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance."

They drew strong applause and, in Lowery's case, a standing ovation.

Barbs because George W. Bush was sitting in the pulpit? Those remarks would have been delivered had the president been down in Crawford, Tex., or up in the White House. And as harsh as they were to conservative ears, they also served a useful purpose. For 10,000 mourners bearing a special kind of pain, those words had a cathartic effect. They became the vehicle through which emotional tensions in the church could surface, the means by which the assembled could give expression to what they were feeling deep down inside. Hence, the laughter, the cheers and loud roars.

George W. Bush -- no passionate orator himself but no political slouch when it comes to reading an audience, black, white or brown -- apparently got it.

Too bad some conservatives on the outside looking in, and caught in their own cramped world, did not.

kingc@washpost.com