Looks like not only the pastor, but President Carter, President Clinton, and Coretta and Martin King's daughter all took the opportunity to point ou that politics is generating a major erosion and undermining of the virtues that the Kings lived for -- justice, individual rights before the law, individual dignity and personal freedoms. And for some reason they all seemed to be glancing at President Bush, who smiled through the whole event.
Their doing so was not making a funeral into a political platform; quite the contrary -- they were speaking in support of the social virtues that the Kings stood for. To put a twist on it is, to my mind, a bit disingenuous.
As for the length of the ceremony, perhaps Doug knows someone more deserving of a large memorial convocation?