Gee, and I thought I wasn’t naive. Thank you.
You might find this essay by Paul Gottfried of interest; he is pondering why conservatism, which once enjoyed a clear-eyed assessment of MLK, has now swallowed the MLK koolaid whole:
“It is significant that the worst distortions about King’s life are not found in the standard leftist biographies. Such as those by David J. Garrow and Taylor Branch. Despite the spin that these authors put on political events and the triumphalist tone of their narratives, they still show King’s personal defects and dependence on Communist mentors and give accurate accounts of his radical leftist politics.
The most ridiculous accounts are found not on the left but in the neoconservative-induced propaganda about King the conservative Christian. The mythical figure who emerges from this propaganda opposed Affirmative Action quota programs, although from interviews—and most palpably in comments printed in Playboy in 1965—it seems clear that King favored the remedies that he is supposed to have resisted. In the Playboy interview King went beyond affirmative action remedies to call for a government compensatory program of $50 billion to be paid mostly to blacks but also to other groups that had been subject to past discrimination.
In contrast to Kirchick’s account, Ronald Reagan yielded only reluctantly to Congress (and especially to the importuning of GOP Congressmen Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich) when he signed off on the King Holiday.
Reagan undoubtedly held the same doubts about King’s character and politics as a Democratic predecessor, Jack Kennedy, according to recently-revealed interviews of Kennedy’s widow. (See for example Jackie Kennedy Onassis not a fan of Martin Luther King Jr., Politico.com, November 9, 2011) Indeed, Paul’s observations about King are perhaps generous next to those of Jackie Kennedy and the Kennedy Administration—and a fortiori National Review, before it fell into neoconservative hands.”
“... the King Cult provides a sort loyalty test for those “conservative” activists, fundraisers, and journalists who hoped to enjoy neoconservative patronage. This test also became a dividing line (albeit not the only one) between the neoconservative Realm of Peace and its enemies on the right, who had to be marginalized and ostracized. Only those who swallowed the King myth whole could be trusted to serve their overlords.
Unlike most popular historical narratives, the King myth is not a mixture of facts and hyperbole. It is entirely manufactured as a test of Political Correctness.”