Video: Congress got all bipartisan today and it pretty much creeped everyone out
posted at 9:21 pm on June 24, 2014 by Mary Katharine Ham
Be careful what you wish for, America.
Republicans and Democrats gathered together today for a worthy cause— the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The nation’s highest civilian honor was given to King and his wife Coretta Scott King:
Fifty years after their instrumental role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on Tuesday.
The presentation of the medal for the Kings — considered the foremost leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights movement that won black Americans equal voting rights and fought to free them from institutional segregation in the Jim Crow South – comes a year after Congress gave the honor to the “Four Little Girls” killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, a pivotal moment in the movement.
So, everything was going swimmingly until they joined hands to sing “We Shall Overcome.” Which sounds like quite a beautiful gesture provided it is a group of half-normal American citizens executing it. But this is Congress and they cannot be trusted with gestures that require the social IQ to act like they’re not reciting the Circle-Circle-Dot-Dot cooties shot chant in their heads like six-year-olds forced to link arms in Red Rover. So, we get this:
You know it’s bad when C-SPAN calls you awkward.
Naked DC runs the film analysis for you. Which face would best represent your feelings? I think I’m a McConnell— bemused, self-aware, and horrified by Pelosi’s singing voice. But If you’re a Levin, run with it. No one could blame you for being utterly petrified. My favorite part may be how our two players stuck on the ends are forced to embrace themselves, alternately clasping their upper arms and halfheartedly miming the presence of another pseudo human in a suit on the other side of them.
And, what can I say of Harry Reid’s face? It is emblematic of his contribution to this great nation.