12/5/2018

BUSH FAMILY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump didn’t speak at the memorial service for former President George H.W. Bush on Wednesday [12-5-18], and the eulogists who did speak addressed the congregation with the understanding that they wouldn’t challenge the occupant of the Oval Office, seated in the front pew. Even so, the contrast and the contradictions between the two were impossible to miss inside Washington National Cathedral, the inescapable subtext as one president was laid to rest and another headed into increasingly turbulent legal and political waters. Intentionally or not, the words of praise for Bush resonated through the lens of the current president and the nation’s broken politics. Trump revels in provocative tweets, disparaging nicknames and a willingness to shatter political norms. Bush was remembered for personal characteristics of modesty, courtesy and restraint. Historian Jon Meacham, author of the definitive Bush biography, ‘Destiny and Power,’ praised Bush’s ‘life code’ in his eulogy. He ‘called on us to choose right over the convenient, hope over fear, not our worst impulses but our best instincts.'”

Susan Page, “Bush and Trump: The contrast that went unspoken but was impossible to miss at the funeral,” USA Today, December 5, 2018 6:29 pm