Saturday, December 1, 2018

The Death Of A President - Updated











Two honorable men right here. I first met George H.W. Bush in 1983 when I was a young official White House photographer for President Reagan and Bush was his Vice President. I remember you could always hear Bush’s knee clicking when he was walking from his office in the West Wing to the Oval Office. You’d hear the clicking before you’d even see him coming down the hall. During those years in the 1980’s, I observed a man who treated people with respect and kindness. And many years later, he treated President Obama with respect each time they interacted. I know President Obama respected him too. In 2011, President Obama awarded President Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “We honor George Herbert Walker Bush for service to America that spanned nearly 70 years, from a decorated Navy pilot who nearly gave his life in World War II, to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, from CIA director to U.S. envoy to China, to the vice presidency (and the presidency)," President Obama said at the ceremony. "His life is a testament that public service is a noble calling." RIP 41
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I was surprised when I saw that Donald is planning to attend the funeral and I wonder how the Bush family feels about it:

When Barbara Bush died I wrote this...

I would add that our two 93-year-old former presidents, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, are probably horrified at the thought that they could potentially be eulogized by Donald Trump. Hopefully both have many years of life ahead of them but if not, I'm guessing that both families are already strategizing how to tactfully disinvite Trump from speaking. (Read the entire post here.)

... and when John McCain's family began to plan his services I wrote this:

[I]f either of our nonagenarian former presidents should pass away during the current president's term, the Bush or Carter families would probably be strategizing about how to disinvite him from speaking at the funeral. Apparently the McCain family is having similar thoughts. Not only do they not want Trump to speak at Senator McCain's funeral, when that day comes, they don't even want him at the service...

 And one more thing. The McCains may have given the Bush and Carter families some political cover. If the funeral for one of our former presidents should take place during Trump's term, the family involved can follow the McCains' lead and inform the White House that their plans include the VP, or whoever, but not the president. Done. (Read that post here.)

Was I wrong about that? Does designating the service to be a "state'' funeral, which is customary for a former president, require or guarantee the presence of the sitting president? Is there any way for the Bush family to get around that? The thought of Donald preening and smirking his way through 41's funeral makes my skin crawl. I can only imagine how the Bushes feel. They may be too gracious to say so publicly but my bet is that they would prefer that Donald stay home and I can't imagine they will invite him to speak. My guess for speakers? 42, 44 and possibly James Baker.

And one more thing:







This brought me such comfort this morning. I had the opportunity to talk with my grandpa about the afterlife. This is what he said: ​He answered without any hesitation. “Yes, I think about it. I used to be afraid. I used to be scared of dying. I used to worry about death. But now in some ways I look forward to it.” And I started crying. I managed to choke out, “Well, why? What do you look forward to?” And he said, “Well, when I die, I’m going to be reunited with these people that I’ve lost.” And I asked who he hoped to see. He replied, I hope I see Robin, and I hope I see my mom. I haven’t yet figured it out if it will be Robin as the three year old that she was, this kind of chubby, vivacious child or if she’ll come as a middle-aged woman, an older woman. And then he said, “I hope she’s the three-year-old.” Robin was the daughter this giant of a man lost years before to leukemia. The little girl he held tightly: who spoke the phrase I have heard Gampy repeat for my entire life, forever knitting Robin’s voice into the tightly woven fabric of our family: “I love you more than tongue can tell.”
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Update. I was wrong. According to Politico, the Bush family is fine, at least publicly, with Donald attending the funeral, although I'm still assuming they won't invite him to speak:

But many of the family’s confidants said Saturday former President George H.W. Bush wished to put that all aside when it came to Trump attending his funeral.

“If anybody at anytime knew anything about the 41st president of the United States, they would completely and totally understand that he would welcome the current occupant 100 percent,” said an aide in the office of the former president. “This is the way the country says goodbye to presidents.” Read about it here.

Spare a thought for Barack and Michelle Obama, who will be stuck sitting next to the Trumps in the first row of the cathedral.

Update #2, on Sunday afternoon. Four years ago I wrote a short post about presidents dying; it included this:

I'm interested in presidential history, and the death of any president is a milestone in our country; a time for grief and reflection, and it doesn't happen that often.

 In the last 70 years, two presidents have died in office: FDR on April 12, 1945, followed by JFK on November 22, 1963. Prior to 1945, the last president to die was Calvin Coolidge, in January, 1933. After Roosevelt and Kennedy, there have been seven additional presidential deaths:

 October 20, 1964: Herbert Hoover
March 28, 1969: Dwight Eisenhower
December 26, 1972: Harry Truman
January 22, 1973: Lyndon Johnson
April 22, 1994: Richard Nixon
June 5, 2004: Ronald Reagan
December 26, 2006: Gerald Ford

 Presidential history geeks know that eight presidents have died in office, four by assassination and four due to natural causes. In addition to John Kennedy, presidents Abraham Lincoln (1865,) James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901) were assassinated; in addition to Roosevelt presidents William Henry Harrison (1841,) Zachary Taylor (1850) and Warren G. Harding (1923) died of various illnesses. (Read the entire post here.) 

 Sunday night, update #3: 

 Sully, former president Bush's trained service dog, stands, or, well, lies, watch over his casket:  










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And a little more about Sully:

Update #4 on Monday morning. More about why Donald is invited to the funeral, from People.com:

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump plan to attend George H.W. Bush‘s funeral — and according to a presidential historian who knew Bush, the former president included Trump in order to not “stiff a sitting president.”

Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University history professor and author, tells PEOPLE that Bush’s decision was motivated by his reverence for the office that he once held.

“For Bush 41, Trump is the president, and he does not want to stiff a sitting president, so in his own way, it is magnanimous that he is having Melania and Donald Trump come,” Brinkley says of Bush, who died at age 94 on Friday. (Read the article here.) 

Update #5, Monday night. Sully arrives:
Update #6 on Tuesday morning. It took a few days but we're finally getting the real story about why the Bushes are being so nice to Donald. They wanted to make sure he signed-off on their elaborate and expensive funeral plans. Presumably they also wanted these intriguing tidbits to stay secret, at least until all the ceremonies are over and everyone is back in Texas. The Bushes famously value loyalty; you can bet they're not happy with whoever leaked this stuff to the Washington Post:

A person close to funeral planning told the Post that while the family had pure motives in inviting the Trumps, they also wanted to ensure the funeral was carried out according to the family’s wishes, including the use of Air Force One to carry his remains to and back from Washington, D.C. (From Talking Points Memo, read the article here.) 

Imagine the scene at Kennebunkport: 

Jeb: "I don't want that degenerate pig at Dad's funeral."

W: "C'mon, bro. We have to be nice to him or he won't let us use the plane."

They promised Donald no one would say mean things about him at the funeral:

Three current and former administration officials said there had been deep frustration in the White House over the anti-Trump tone of the Sept. 1 funeral for McCain, which Trump did not attend. One senior administration official said Trump’s reaction to the criticism was “almost paralyzing for a week,” and officials have been assured that Bush’s funeral would be different. (Read the WaPo article here.)

As I recall, no one at John McCain's funeral directly criticized Donald, or at least his name was never spoken. They just said a lot of nice things about the senator and the contrast with the current president was obvious. After John McCain's funeral, I wrote this:

A good chunk of the most important people in government, past and present, were at the Cathedral yesterday to honor John McCain and his service to our country. (Donald was golfing, see above.) Will a similar congregation show up for Donald's funeral? (I doubt it.) Would anyone of stature be willing to speak over Donald's casket? (Don't make me laugh.) Whoever happens to be president at the time would probably submit to hemorrhoid surgery to get out of giving that eulogy. The former presidents will probably hightail it out of the country the moment it becomes evident that Donald's funeral is imminent, and not return until he is safely in the ground.

 What about Donald's children? Could Don Jr. or Eric deliver a speech as moving and heartfelt as Meghan McCain's? Could Ivanka or Tiffany? (Short answer: No.) As I've said here before, no one at Donald's funeral will be able to stand up and tell stories about times when he was heroic, inspirational or courageous, because there aren't any. Anyone who even implies that Donald was any of those things at any time in his life will be laughed out of the funeral parlor. The whole thing will be superficial, perfunctory and, frankly, pathetic. (Read the entire post here.) 

 No one will criticize Donald at 41's funeral. They won't have to. The contrast will be crystal clear. 
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