Protocol for dummies
by digby
Donald Trump didn’t attend Barbara Bush’s funeral out of what the White House called “respect for the family.” Haha. Yes, that is the respectful thing to do considering what he’s said about Jeb and George…
But the truth is that president’s don’t attend the funerals of first ladies. I don’t know why, it just seems to be protocol. That didn’t stop the right wingers from having a meltdown when President Obama didn’t attend the funeral of Nancy Reagan.
Newt Gingrich on Thursday ripped into President Barack Obama’s decision to skip the funeral of former first lady Nancy Reagan as “sending his contempt” and “hostility” toward the presidency and ideology of Ronald Reagan.
“I think that you should never assume that Obama does anything by accident or by some shallow reason,” the former speaker of the House and 2012 presidential candidate said on “The Mike Gallagher Show.”
Instead of traveling to Simi Valley, California, with first lady Michelle Obama, the president will keep his plans for Austin, Texas, where he will attend the annual South by Southwest festival. Not since John F. Kennedy attended the funeral of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962 has a sitting president attended the service of a late first lady. Michelle Obama also attended the 2011 funeral of Betty Ford, and the president did not.
“He is sending his contempt for the Reagan presidency, his hostility to the Reagan ideology, and he is once again proving that he has never been president of all of the American people. He is president of his faction,” Gingrich said, adding that he would be attending Reagan’s service on Friday in California with his wife, Callista. “He does not do any of the ceremonial duties that the president of the American people would do, and it’s why he is the most destructive and most divisive president, I think, since James Buchanan in the 1850s.”
Gingrich also blasted Obama as “the man who refused to attend the funeral of a sitting Supreme Court justice because he disagreed with him ideologically,” referring to Obama’s non-attendance at the funeral of Antonin Scalia in February.
Vice President Joe Biden attended on behalf of the administration, and both the president and first lady met with Scalia’s family privately the previous day.
In making his point earlier, Gingrich also referred to past reports that Obama sent the bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill “back to the British Embassy as one of his first acts.” But in 2012, the White House rebuffed the notion that the bust went to the British Embassy, pointing out in a post on its blog that the bust is still in the executive residence, outside the Treaty Room.
Weirdly, he hasn’t said anything about Trump playing golf today instead of attending the funeral.
I really don’t think Gingrich’s special brand of assholishness gets enough credit for the rise of Trump. His disgusting nasty rhetoric paved the way.
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