I sure didn't. I thought it was Dr. King!
But Democrat-turned-Republican Elbert Guilloroy of Lafayette Parish, LA has straightened me out with the latest "viral" (among the right) video Why I Am a Republican. This gem was gleefully posted by a right wing commenter on a Linked in discussion group, so I got to see Mr. Guilloroy's rampant ignorance and soft-spoken malice on display.
I can see why it's viral among Republicans. It touches all bases:
1. It's by an African American ("See. We're not racist!")
2. It calls us the "Democrat Party" -- the Luntz-tested-goes-back-to-Joe-McCarthy insult (explained here by Hendrick Hertzberg as the Ic factor.)
3. It runs through the GOP's favorite pseudohistory -- that because Lincoln was a Republican and the Southern Dems were racists and Ike enforced Civil Rights, the Republicans are the real party that acts in the interests of blacks.
4. It regurgitates the "Blacks are slaves on the Dem. plantation" obscenity by actually calling the Democratic party "overseers."
5. It credits a Republican with "free at last . . . " perhaps the most famous quote by Martin Luther King, to take the Dem plantation myth even further -- It's Republicans who are freeing you from the chains of Democratic welfare state dependency.
So congrats, Elbert. You have salved the restless consciences of tens of thousands of white Republicans with your soothing (though false and malicious) words.