Instead, he will pay respects to Justice Scalia when he is lying in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court on Friday.
Is all of the outrage partisan, or do you think he deserves some criticism for the decision?
Nope, except I hope he’ll secretly go out one night and dance on the grave.
I think for the Chief Justice it would be more expected for the president to attend, but not for an Associate Justice. That’s why we have a vice president.
I’m more outraged the President didn’t wear a tie when first making a statement about the Justice’s death.
I’m a little conflicted about this myself.
Unless the family specifically wouldn’t want him there, I think it might have been better to plan to attend.
Also, concerns about security detail feels like a lame excuse.
From here:President Obama Is Criticized Over Funeral for Scalia - The New York Times
“Facing questions again on Thursday about the decision, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, did not offer a direct answer but implied that one reason was the potential for the extensive presidential security detail to be disruptive.”
I’m eager to read other opinions on this.
What’s the precedent? In the past, has the president usually attended funerals of Supreme Court Justices, especially current ones?
Generally yes, but not in his final year of office.
It is a given that there will be many high level government officials attending, so I am not so sure that there is much difference in level of security.
Maybe this time Obama is the designated survivor?
For the win!
There haven’t been many Supreme Court Justices who have died in office. Including those who died after retirement: Bush gave the eulogy for Rehnquist but did not attend White’s funeral. Clinton attended Burger and Brennan but not Marshall, Blackmun, or Powell. I doubt that anybody even noticed when Goldberg died. It hasn’t really seemed to turn upon when in the president’s term the death occurs.
As a matter of protocol, I think this is fine. As a matter of politics, it seems like an unforced error. It gives the opposition an easy stick to hit with, like Bush not going to military funerals.
There would be Fox generated outrage if he went. They’d accuse him of hypocrisy and of carrying a secret onion if he shed any tears. Ted Cruz won’t be there either. The story will be forgotten in a day or so. It’s another Rick Warren story except from the right
This is a good point. No matter what Obama does, it would cause outrage from certain people.
Gotta love the “I don’t give a fuck” years of a President’s final term in office.
Pretty much. We’d be hearing whispers that Obama attended despite the wishes of the family, that his entourage’s presence was disruptive, etc. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Paying his respects at SCOTUS itself is fine. The funeral service will include a Catholic mass, and Biden is Catholic, so that’s good, too.
Looks like Ted Cruz changed his mind and will the funeral. It would have looked very bad for him to skip it while blaming Obama for the same thing
From what I heard on the radio, Scalia’s family are not the biggest fans of Obama, but that Scallia did have a good relationship with Biden. So even though they aren’t going to come out and publicly uninvite the president, there may have been some behind the scenes communication indicating that they would prefer to have the vice president there rather than the president.
But the Right wing spin machine will make hay where it can.
I bet that if Obama had announced that he WAS going to attend Scalia’s funeral, the wingnuts would have been outraged at the evil Obummer for desecrating St. Antonin’s funeral by his presence.
To paraphrase Al Capp, they’re Shitheads Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.
The right-wing spin machine is also claiming that Obama isn’t attending out of spite because Scalia didn’t attend the State of the Union. Not sure if these are the same folks who claim that Obama personally smothered him with a pillow.
At least the SOTU thing has an element of truth. The Gang of Three – Scalia, Alito, and Thomas – were no-shows at the last SOTU, and I don’t think Scalia attended any of Obama’s. In reality I think Obama’s non-attendance is most plausibly the result of a quiet negotiation with the Scalia family, and yes, the same wingnut contingent that is criticizing him for not attending would have blasted him for hypocrisy if he did attend.
Did he at least have the decency to wear an American flag lapel pin?
…this one’s going way back! Back, back, you can put it on the board! Yes!
Scalia boycotted Obama’s SOTU addresses; he deserves to be countersnubbed in death.