Trump and Obama at Carter’s funeral
Funerals make strange seatfellows:
Former President Barack Obama casually and amiably chats with Adolf Hitler as the latter is set to assume power in 11 days, end American democracy, and impose a white nationalist dictatorship. https://t.co/4tbj46yVk8
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 9, 2025
By the way, Laura Bush still looks fabulous. On the other hand, George W. Bush doesn’t, and he’s the same age as Trump. Is Bush ill?
Bush might be ill, BUT Trump is an exception to the fact that American women outlive men by several years on average.
George W is not an exception.
And Trump is a remarkable, exceptional man in more ways than one!
This morning my new café friend, who turns out to have been mayor of Malibu as well as on the city council for 14 years, was in the dumps about the fires. He knows people who have lost homes and everything.
We chewed on that for a while, then he resumed his usual beat on current events.
I’m not sure which feed he watched, but he described in detail the seating of the Presidents, Vice-Presidents and their plus-ones. About who looked at who, who smiled at who, who talked to who, and who just stared straight ahead and ignored everyone (the Harris’s).
It sounded so much like a high school cafeteria scene at the high status tables.
Trump June 1946.
GW Bush July 1946.
Clinton August 1946.
Michelle Obama notably absent…she for one didn’t want to interact with Literally Hitler
Laura Bush looks none to happy sitting next to BO. Jill and Harris, daggers drawn. Michelle staying in Hawaii, surrounded by her Wall and living next to the sea that will swallow up the estate.
According to my café friend, Carter specified that all Prezs and Veeps attend his funeral.
Where’s Obama’s harpy of a wife?
Melania Trump looks old in this photo. She also looks like Tulsi Gabbard. GWB does look old. Maybe from karma lying about WMD’s in Iraq. I was also born in July 1946. It is interesting for me to track the energy and mental acuity of DJT since we are the same age. Being such, it is amazing to me how he was able to weather the full force of the US government in trying to destroy him. Which also says a lot about the mental acuity of the destroyers. Too many DEI hires
Griffin:
Trump June 1946.
GW Bush July 1946.
Clinton August 1946.
My husband: November 1946. Looks much healthier than all of them!
Someone should impose a penance on Stuart Eizenstadt by duct-taping him to his chair for a month. Taping his mouth shut a necessary component of that.
Big Mike is, apparently, in Hawaii and so had a “scheduling conflict”.
She sucks anyway but, frankly, I understand not leaving Hawaii to come back for this, unless it’s (as Eleanor Clift said about attending Nixon’s funeral) to make sure he’s dead.
Did Stuart Eizenstadt just say ‘Jimmy Carter has earned his place in heaven’?
Highschool cafeteria BS.
Mooch wouldn’t have a nice thing to say about any of them, maybe including her husband. She isn’t missed.
Those awful voice overs.
A state funeral is apposite for a monarch.
It speaks ill of Carter’s children and their staff event planners that the demented husk of Joseph Biden was recruited to deliver a eulogy in a church.
W is showing the signs of his ill-spent young adulthood. IMO
His old man looked pretty bad towards the end…so maybe there’s a genetic thing there too…?
Carter’s children and their event planners recruited Garth Brooks to sing John Lennon’s “Imagine” at a Baptist funeral held in an Anglican cathedral.
W is showing the signs of his ill-spent young adulthood. IMO
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Unless you think it modal for men of 77 to have had an ill-spent young adulthood, he doesn’t.
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His old man looked pretty bad towards the end…so maybe there’s a genetic thing there too…?
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About 10% of the men of the 1924 cohort reached age 93. No, they don’t look great at that age. Funny dat.
All 8 years of presidency (hopefully) plus 4 intermediate years of torture for Trump plus:
Trump: years of McDonald’s, Diet Coke and women (lots of women).
GWBush: years of booze and cocaine.
Clinton: years of cheeseburgers, cigars and women (lots and lots of women).
Who’ll last the longest?
I think W looks ok for 78. Better than Clinton, who has looked ghostly the past few years.
Did Stuart Eizenstadt just say ‘Jimmy Carter has earned his place in heaven’?
I didn’t hear what he said, but Eizenstadt was very outspokenly critical of Carter’s Sunday School characterizations of Jews as Christ-killers at the time.
I haven’t a clue what Mooch would have to say about any of them. I’d wager her view is that she should not be expected to attend the funeral of a man she had met twice.
I didn’t hear what he said, but Eizenstadt was very outspokenly critical of Carter’s Sunday School characterizations of Jews as Christ-killers at the time.
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That’s not a ‘Sunday school characterization’.
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The theological howler was the rancid maraschino on top for a political brief of a eulogy.
My guess is that the Party Leadership, including Barack, leaned hard on Michelle O. to be the figurehead Prez and she refused and still refuses to have anything more to do with politics.
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You can stand me up to the gates of hell,
But I won’t back down.
–Tom Petty, “I Won’t Back Down”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA
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Dare to be great, Michelle!
Bush has the aging look of a man who realizes he’s been a complete failure.
He hasn’t been a complete failure. (His conduct since leaving office has been unedifying and he’s alienated just about everyone not on his payroll).
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I doubt anyone leaned on Michelle Obama other than contractors who hadn’t been paid.
I doubt anyone leaned on Michelle Obama other than contractors who hadn’t been paid.
Why not? Make an argument beyond your opinions.
MO consistently had higher poll ratings as a D candidate against Trump than the others. Do you really believe the Dem leadership didn’t consider, why not Michelle?, and put the proposition to her?
These people are about power. They cleared the Dem slate in 2020 in order run Biden in 2020 because he looked like he had better chances than Sanders and the other Dwarves and Michelle wouldn’t.
Why wouldn’t they lean on Michelle?
Since Lennon’s “Imagine” was an anti-religion song (among other things) it didn’t belong at a funeral for a believing Christian. This is probably a sign of the sort of Christianity endorsed by Carter and his family.
Why wouldn’t they lean on Michelle?
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Because she is not a political professional and she’s not interested. She hasn’t held a salaried job in 16 years. The notion Mooch is some sort of electoral deus ex machina is the issue of your imagination, not theirs.
This is probably a sign of the sort of Christianity endorsed by Carter and his family.
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Not Carter himself, but those in his camarilla, including his children (who have four divorces between them).
The notion Mooch is some sort of electoral deus ex machina is the issue of your imagination, not theirs.
As usual you ignore her polls.
But that would be inconvenient for your imagined superiority in this discussion.
Hello. The particular hymn heard in that site-formerly-known-as-Twitter* clip, I forget most details about it including its name, but I regard its melody as one of the more poignant in the Protestant hymnodic repertoire.
Art Deco pointed out:
That surprised me, but it’s true. Along with Trisha Yearwood, according to the program (to which I’m currently referring). And right after “Imagine there’s no heaven…” comes the ‘Our Father’! What a cock-up of an abomination.
I may have said it before, but this kind of thing makes me exceedingly glad that in an Orthodox Christian funeral, there is zero leeway for any lunacy around “programming” and “selections”. The hymns and readings are the same as they’ve been for a millennium and none of St. John of Damascus’ edifying contributions thereto are ever pushed aside for such rot.
Aside from that, though, I take it that the event had much beauty.
* (It would be funny if Musk were to rename what’s now called X as “{easily pronounceable symbol}”. Well, I, at least, would chuckle.)
Additionally, I am of the opinion that Canada must be annexed.
Art Deco, Carter supported elective abortion and gay marriage. I don’t know if he said anything about transgenderism.
That’s not a ‘Sunday school characterization’.
Not sure what you mean here. I was referring to the fact that Carter described Jews as killers of Christ in two different Sunday school classes, arousing the ire of Eisenzstadt and a lot of other religious leaders, both Christian and Jewish. Whether the ire was justified or not is beside the point.
“Did Stuart Eizenstadt just say ‘Jimmy Carter has earned his place in heaven’?” Art Deco
“Eizenstadt was very outspokenly critical of Carter’s Sunday School characterizations of Jews as Christ-killers at
the time.” Jimmy
“Lennon’s “Imagine” was an anti-religion song” Kate
“Imagine there’s no heaven…” comes the ‘Our Father’! What a cock-up of an abomination.” Philip Sells on
“Carter supported elective abortion and gay marriage.” Kate
We’re all sinners but perhaps not the best resume for entrance into heaven… and did Carter request that Lennon’s Imagine be sung? If so, a message from the grave for those with eyes to see.
Phillip Sells,
I’m sure I am not alone in enjoying the repetitive close to your comments*. 🙂
*Reminds me of Johnny Carson’s recurring character, Floyd R. Turbo.
I wouldn’t say that GW Bush looks older, but he looks different–his eyes. He doesn’t look like the same person. I sense some bewilderment in his eyes.
I recently looked up online a family that had been friends with my family but 70 years ago had moved 2,500 miles away. The daughter had been friends with my sister. We exchanged photos and Christmas cards for decades after they moved, until our parents died. My sister’s old friend had a photo online, because she was still working & had a website to promote her work. Her picture in her 70s (I guess) looked very much like I recall from her high school pictures. Yet GW Bush looks very different now. (My brother has recently posted some letters from our grandmother from that era, which mention that family.)
The comments about Michelle Obama as a Presidential candidate come down to two facts. 1) I have read that polls indicate she would have been a very strong Presidential candidate.
2)I have also read that she has no interest in being President, even if as a figurehead she would spend minimal time on the job.
No thank you. Toronto/Ontario is just as bad as NYC/California. One California is enough for me. I have had enough of French speakers either from France or from Canada. No thanks.
Since people brought up Michelle O., I never heard of any climbing down from all those who insisted that she would definitely be the Dem candidate in 2024, e.g. filmmaker Joel Gilbert, who produced a movie (and a book?) with that narrative. Obviously the plans (if there were any) changed, but they were all *so sure!*
As usual you ignore her polls.
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Polls are generated by massaging convenience samples.
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People do perform differently as ghostly figures on pollster’s lists than they do as flesh-and-blood candidates. Gary Hart was a consistent example. Unlike Hart, she’s never been a flesh-and-blood candidate. (I’d wager Caroline Kennedy’s polls might be pretty good too).
Dubya lost the base because he failed to understand that defending your policies was defending your base. By failing to protect his base they eventually abandoned him.
He also got too cozy with the destroyers of Americans and American interest that sandwich his administration.
When John Lennon imagine[d] “no religion”, he meant that no one would be an adherent of any established religion.
When the Jimmy Carter children imagine “no religion” — if they’d ever paid any attention to the lyrics at all — might they have figured that in Lennon’s utopia, everyone would have converted to the Carters’ born-again brand of Christianity, and therefore “religion” at that point would merely be what everyone believed?
I rather doubt it. Most likely, they recognized “Imagine” as a feel-good Kumbaya paean to leftism and put it on the agenda without ever having paid close attention. It’s simply the sort of thing that one reflexively *does* when dwelling in that bubble.
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A friend of mine who (along with her husband) is a serious, practicing Jew said she liked Lennon’s “Imagine”. When I pointed her to the “no religion” lyric, she was genuinely surprised. It had a sweet sound. She’d never looked closely at what it was advocating.
May God have mercy on his soul. RIP.
Carter was not at all my flavor of politician, but R.I.P. All of his foibles no longer matter.
GWB, now – I’m seeing that slightly dazed looked, somebody else said, ‘bewildered’. I’m wondering, given his past excesses, if there’s a touch of dementia now? I haven’t heard him say much of anything for the past few years, and didn’t notice him interacting with the other notables.
Lots of conjecture and crap here.
I do not think Bush looks at all bad for a man of his age. I think he has gained a little weight because he probably cannot exercise as he use to.
The reference to booze and cocaine was despicable. A reminder Bush decided that he had a drinking problem, and went teetotaler. A great show of discipline.
Bush’s failure was listening to his Secretary of State, the great General Colin Powell, and Richard Armitage with their nation building/empire building schemes once military victory was achieved in Iraq, rather than to Donald Rumsfeld who advocated letting Iraqis clean their own house once we freed them from Saddam. So far as WMD are concerned, maybe they never existed but we learned that Saddam thought they did. If his lackeys fooled him, why fault Bush? We do know that he had, and had used, poison gas against the Iranians.
Annexing Canada is insane, as Gringo points out. But there is more to it: the crazed Francophiles of Quebec, the Leftists of Toronto (Jordan Peterson excluded). The Prairie provinces would fit right in, though.
Buying Greenland is a great idea, but why does not the US simply just seize it? We fear Denmark ? Or the International Court of Justice (sic)?
What armies do these have?
Oldflyer:
Bravo!
Right on!
Polls are generated by massaging convenience samples.
Art Deco’s comments are massaged by his convenient opinions.
No real argument.
Old Flyer:
Yes, Bravo indeed.
It bears mentioning that poison gas is a weapon of mass destruction. Of mass death.
Saddam also used gas against the Kurds. He was a real sweetheart, that one.
Colin Powell was a mediocre JCS and Sec of State. Worse than mediocre, actually.
Trump is clearly trolling Canada, although if he excluded Quebec and possibly BC and Ontario it could be a great addition.
As I alluded to; is it coincidence that Trudeau decided to call it quits once Trump called him out?
I don’t know whether he is serious about Greenland. We do know that the United States tried to buy it after WWII. There is an Independence sentiment in Greenland. If Trumps rhetoric activated it and they became independent, it could get interesting. Of course if it were added as a state Puerto Ricans would lose their minds. Well lose their minds to a greater degree than at present.
Trump’s bombast has already had an effect in Mexico.The President down there does her own posturing, but her actions tell a different story. It will be interesting to see how that relationship plays out.
Kevin O’Leary had some interesting insights this evening. His point was that with Trump you need to separate the rhetoric from the message. He indicated that as a ‘dealer’ himself, that is also a given in the environs in which he operates. Seasoned international power brokers are probably disregarding the rhetoric and getting the message.