Saturday, December 8, 2018

POTUS pomps




John McCain had the foresight to exclude Trump from attending his funeral. Somehow I doubt he would have had McCain included him. If he had attended it would have been in extremely poor taste even for Trump who twice maligned him; once saying he was not a war hero since he was a POW and then by not immediately firing a low-level staff when she made a very tasteless joke about McCain's cancer. That was McCain though, the “bulldog” as he was called at the Naval Academy, decent grace in life, spiteful from the beyond.
Either George H.W. Bush had no resentment towards Trump for personal remarks, or it was an oversight on his part. At the funeral in D.C. (Bush probably traveled more in three days dead than he did in the last month alive) Trump and Melania took the end of a pew by the Clintons, the Obama's and the Carters. His oldest son and the 43rd POTUS sat across the aisle with the family. It was evident how the arrival of the Trumps changed the tone of the funeral—on that pew—from somber and sad to somber and awkward. As Stephen Colbert later remarked Trump was the only man who could bring a funeral down.
Ruminations
George H.W. Bush got it, or tried to get what was humanly possible. He saw 1,000 points of light where most see half that. He saw the flaws in supply-side or “trickle down” economics. As a vice presidential candidate he called Reagan's plan “Voodoo” economics. His death marks the end of an era, a genre of Republicans who call out the fraud, the myth that tax cuts will pay for themselves and the surplus will eventually be seen by the middle and lower classes. Of course after the election, when showed footage of himself saying Voodoo economics, Bush told reporters he was kidding and supported Reagan's policy. In 1981, weeks into his presidency, Reagan passed an Economic Recovery Tax Act providing a massive cut to his voters. Sensing rising deficits, he and his administration soon began trying to roll back the cuts. A light point in the “Shining city on a hill?” So many symbolic metaphors to play ring around the truth.
From his years as the youngest wing-man in the U.S. navy, his service in WWII, to POTUS 48 years later, Bush has been described a a decent man who disliked the dirty side of politics. In 1967 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Houston's 7th district. He was the chosen by Nixon to be Ambassador to the United Nations, a year as chairman of the Republican National committee, a year as the Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China. In 1976 Bush was appointed by Gerald Ford as Director of the CIA. In 1980, Bush competed with Reagan in no less than 33 primary races, with Reagan losing all but four of them. By May, “the great communicator” had collected more than enough votes to win his party's nomination. His operatives wanted Bush to drop out. He refused to quit, hanging his hopes on being the only option as a running-mate. The rest, as someone said, is history.
Trump had a stunned and longing (as far as his ego could permit) if not soulful look. What good words, if any, would people say at his funeral. He couldn't even get half the Democrats in congress to come to his inauguration. Sure, Don, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany, Barron, Jarrod, maybe even his ex-wives will have some choice words. I'm sure a Republican or two will remember him well. A few clever Democrats, former presidents, may find a way to wrap flattery into the truth as people do to eulogize people with absolutely no redeeming qualities. He will get the full treatment, the pomp, the circumstance, the flag he once hugged, out of the countries tradition for a passing president. He did look pensive though in that pew, inches from presidents who never would question such a thing, all of whom are secure in their legacy. Trump was the outsider and it showed. The juxtaposition was glaring. Inches in proximity on that front pew, yet a canyon between the two men (Trump and Obama) in their values, their integrity, their approach to and respect for the job. This was the first, and hopefully only, funeral for a former POTUS Trump attended. Frankly, I'm surprised and at the same time pleased that we went at all. It must, in the contemplative silence of his pew, rubbing elbows with those who have signed productive legislation, who have left balanced budgets, be awkward, even embarrassing. After all the narcissistic smoke clears and it dawns that he may not be pope, when Trump realizes that this is one event he can not turn into a me moment, he is left defensless; humble, human, receptive to epiphanies.
The timing is right. It is enough to almost make someone (not me) feel a soupรงon of sympathy for the guy. It bears all the elements of a Shakespearian trragedy. Mueller is getting closer by the day as Cohen and Manafort sing their way to prison. With Democrats taking the gavel in January in the House of Representatives, Trump's legal prospects for 2019 won't begin well. At the funeral it sure looked as though he was visited by the ghost of memorable presidents, touching a nerve that he never knew existed. Now he is in that stage of Nixon's presidency where the talking walls are closing in, only Trump's don't talk because he does not drink, which may be listed as a redeeming quality.

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