Point most happily taken RTFirefly, what about the rest of my treating like-as-like questions ?
London-Calling,
Just to explain, my purpose wasn’t so much to say that Bush must attend these funerals, as it was to rant about one more of the never-ending lies that the right seems so good at these days.
Still, the latter part of my rant did suggest that I was comparing Bush to the former presidents. I understand your points about the fact that under these circumstances, there would be far too many funerals to attend and picking and choosing which ones to attend would be a no-win situation. Still, I think that when Clinton or Bush Sr. or Reagan, attended the funeral services on their watch, it brought comfort to the greiving families and was the right thing to do. It showed that they felt a responsibility came with their decisions to send our soldiers into combat. I just don’t see that with Bush.
Maybe the comparison is unfair, as you suggest though. It really wasn’t the point of my rant anyway. I probably should have nixed the last paragraph. Heat of the moment and all…
I’m trying to find a cite but I recall reading that one of those fundraisers took place less than 5 miles, and at the same time, from where one of the funerals was being held.
Yep sure, musicguy. I understood the rant. But it’s also the old ‘Clinton did this, Bush does this’ thing as well, and I left It alone thinking one of the tin foilers would be along to offer a different perspective.
Not my fight but I thought someone had to offer a counter view . . . them tin foilers seem to dying out faster than the dinosaurs lately . . . it’s oddly liberating to make their arguements for 'em.
Fwiw, I suspect there’s some kind or rule; an inverse relationship between the extremism of an administration and the quietness of its erstwhile supporters . . .
You have to consider the space/time coordinates for the point where the trajectory of the shit intersects the locus of the fan.
Al Franken, in his book, ‘proved’ that no news organization reported about the time Bush puked on Japanese Prime Minister using the Ann Coulter google techinque.
In short, you google carefully selected words and use the fact that those search terms produced no results as proof that there was nothing out there to find.
Didn’t Clinton showup for the funeral of one of those poor kids who got killed in Somalia? From what I heard, the father (of the dead soldier) refused to shake hands with Clinton-this shocked (and surprised) the C-in-C mightily!
I bet that’s a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ thing. If she doesn’t show up to enough funerals, she’s a heartless bitch that doesn’t care . If she goes to all of 'em, she’s an attention grabbing bitch who’s mourning for the cameras.
What would the etiquette be of having more than one limo in the procession?
Should the President bring a covered dish to the wake? Who would be responsible for getting the dish back to the White House?
In my neck of the woods, funerals were for friends and family only. I remember people being ticked off once when a county commissioner came by to sign the book at the viewing. He didn’t know the deceased well, and it was seen as tacky.
I agree with Mr. Moto and others who point out that (at least for those who aren’t public figures) funerals are normally for those who knew the deceased well enough to mourn at his/her passing. The President (whoever he is at a given time) shouldn’t attend funerals of our combat troops unless invited, IMHO.
However, that doesn’t prevent the military from holding brief memorial services at Dover AFB, where the bodies arrive, that the President or his proxies could periodically attend. That manner of recognition of the sacrifice these men and women made on behalf of his policy would be most appropriate, and is deeply deserved. This is his war, and he ought to be there, once in a while, to mourn the dead.
I would be happy if anyone from the current administration attended any funerals in the capacity below.
Head of State
Commander of the Armed Forces
President
Private grieving citizen?
Doesn’t showing up for one funeral piss off the parents of every other soldier who died?
So it’s attend all funerals or none at all?
I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, if we aren’t even allowed to see a picture of a coffin coming home, we sure as hell aren’t going to see a picture of Bush standing next to one.
:eek:
Yes, that probably could have been worded better. 
Indeed. I was just trying to dispense with the notion (raised by others) that practical problems somehow prevent Bush from personally honoring the dead of this war. He could do so; he just won’t.
What would be the point of doing so, though. Our country has been at war many times, and the Commander-in-Chief has never participated in public memorial services as a matter of routine. Events like the Gettysburg Address are notable in part because they are rare.
The military’s focus in handling the dead is to transport them to their final resting place quickly and respectfully. They generally do so with a minimum of ceremony, reserving such for the final funeral and burial.
There was a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently of a family who wanted the body of their son returned to Pennsylvania quickly so a joint funeral could be held with his mother, who had also died at about the same time. How would this family have felt if this was prevented by a time delay caused by a memorial service in Delaware?
(Cite is from another paper, since it’s free.)
I received a response from Carl Limbacher today. Here is what he told me:
Interesting. Two points that I have…
First, can someone explain the difference between a memorial service and a funeral. Because what Clinton attended sure looked like a funeral to me. There were caskets and he gave a eulogy. They can call it a memorial service but if it looks like a duck…
Second, I just spend quite a while on Google and cannot find one instance, sans Veteran’s Day, of Bush attending any memorial service whatsoever for anyone that has died in the Iraq war. Does anyone else recall this happening? Carl Limbacher suggests that he has been to many of these. You would think that there would be a link to at least one.
Maybe he can sign up here, so we can rip him a new one.