Superficially deconstructing the Jimmy Carter state funeral

What it tell us about our country, and, folks, it's not good. At least no one threw a punch.

Jimmy Carter could not have died at a more propitious political moment.

As the most personally decent man to serve as president in the 20th Century, he is literally the diametric opposite of Donald Trump, a lying privileged gasbag who stole his father’s money.

I wasn’t able to sit down and watch President Carter’s state funeral live at the Washington National Cathedral, so I had a few hours today and watched it later.

In some ways, it was inspiring and touching. In others, it reminded me of just how incredibly screwed up this country is.

Inspiring and touching: President Carter’s grandson Jason Carter gave a great, warm, humanizing eulogy. He discussed how Carter and the late First Lady Rosalyn Carter were just regular Papaw and Mamaw Carter, and how they dried their zip-loc bags on the rack by their sink. The obligatory Grandpa Gets His First Cell Phone anecdote was funny—we’ve all been there—where he describes Carter asking him who it was. He said, it’s Jason. You called me.

“I did? I was just trying to take a picture”.

It;’s always funny when it’s our folks, but to think of former President of the United States, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and a nuclear engineer trying to take a picture with his cell phone made it particularly apt.

I used to spend hours with my dad, a PhD research scientist, trying to explain how his cell phone worked (he never took to it, he kept it in his car trunk, then forgot he ever had one) and how to send e-mails (he was also a former Army radio operator and instructor).

President Ford’s son Steve, an actor, read his father’s warm eulogy, looking very much like Ford himself, but thinner. Vice President Fritz Mondale’s son Ted ( I sat next to him at the University of Minnesota in a presidency class, where he whispered, this is bullshit, which I thought hilarious) did a fine job reading his father’s eulogy, which was very matter of fact about Carter’s real accomplishments.

I’m not doing a blow-by-blow of this, but I am going to focus on the almost Kafkaesque pew full of former presidents, First Ladies, vice presidents, and, gulp, the incoming 47th president, who will take office in eleven days.

For some reason, former President Barack Obama was seated next to Trump and the nasty ice sculpture who will be our First Lady again. I am convinced the Justice League of American Former Presidents had a Zoom call the other day, trying to decide how to handle the incoming moron/fascist.

“Barack, you’re young. You’re the junior president. You talk to this asshole. It’s on you, man”.

And he did.

There’s Mrs. Fun right there…

For all the warnings he issued over Trump, he and Trump looked like they were discussing their most recent round of golf over drinks. Obama was all smiles and body movements, and Trump had what I would call an actual natural smile, something he’s not done that I’ve seen. He always smiles like a kid at the Sears photography studio, fixed choppers, squinting, looking like it’s the first time he’s ever done it.

I cannot imagine what they discussed, but Trump was very animated and listening. I suspect there are teams of professional lip readers going over the video now.

What do you say to a man who is the absolute antithesis of every thing Jimmy Carter ever thought, did, experienced, or said?

The rest of the JLAFP saw and avoided. There were no fake handshakes and grins—there were capitalized Snubs and Shunning. The CBS commentariat made the usual clucking about oh my all the former presidents may have differences but here they are!

Yeah. There they are.

You have a former Republican president three pew spaces away from an incoming Republican president, and he cannot be bothered to shake his hand, and why should he?

That’s how bad it is. B-a-d.

Oh, you know, Trump capped Bush’s brother Jeb (low-energy) in 2016 (remember how upset you used to get about the Bushes?), so Trump didn’t attend President George H.W. Bush’s memorial service. Imagine how messed up that is on the face of it. Now this kind of dysfunction is just another day at the Oval Office. I believe Melania did attend, but come on. If Marco Rubio had been the 45th president, he would have been there with bells on. Trump? Naw. They hate his effing orange guts.

They still do. They hate him even more because the world has changed under their feet.

The Clintons? Second row, aisle. No eye contact. What would they say to Trump after what Trump ( someone who should be locked up) did to Hillary Clinton (who was not locked up)? I also didn’t notice a big bro hug between Al Gore and Bill, either, but maybe I missed it.

The key Weirdest Moment Ever?

Mike Pence decided he would shake Trump’s hand.

Now, of all the people who should shun, eschew, and hold up a silver cross in front of Trump, it is, no doubt, Mike Pence. You know, Trump wanted him to be strung up because “maybe he deserved it”. But no. Mike shakes his hand. Washing it won’t get off what Trump oozed on him—maybe a quick severance with a Japanese Shogun sword. This was no moment of national political reconciliation. This was yet another example of why Trump shouldn’t even be in a church, let alone president.

W. was all smiles with Obama (they love the guy), and had a funny only-Dubya impish moment with Dan Quayle, who is now one of the giant intellects of the GOP in comparison to the FOX News Team about to be established at every level of American government.

I want to repeat this: no one wanted to shake the hand of or be near the incoming president of the United States.

Now it seems like a matter of course, a typical Trump Era snapshot, but we have to collectively step back and say, holy shit. He’s that horrible.

And he is.

I want to repeat this: no one wanted to shake the hand of or be near the incoming president of the United States, again. In boldface.

Good God, even Nixon was treated by the JLAFPs like he wasn’t a bag of flaming dogshit on a salad plate in a four star Michelin restaurant. Nixon got the smiles, the handshakes, the eye contact, all of it.

Oh, and I didn't see any of the former First Ladies greet The Wicked Witch of Slovenia, either. That has been the usual protocol: well, God, we can at least greet a fellow long-suffering wife.

They did not. No, not at all. Not did Melania Knavs go in for sugar and hugs, either.

Now, I love Joe Biden. I also think he should have stepped down right after the 2022 midterms. But he also was part of the Trump Freeze Out, and one can only imagine the dripping relish with which he intoned “Character, Character, Character” as he glared over at the dithering dough-faced blowhard who will succeed him. Trump seemed to be nodding off from moment to moment, and that was probably the best strategy for him, because who would want to be him in that room?

The only room he’s really comfortable in socially is full of people who pay him $250,000 to eat his grotesque golf club chow—or in a courtroom, which he will be in tomorrow.

For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris studiously ignored the Trumps, and really seemed not to want to be there, ever. Who can blame her? She was yet another victim of Trump’s drive-by sliming. Her husband, Douglas C. Emhoff, the Second Gentleman of the United States and someone I so desperately want to hang out with —and talk about Nirvana!—managed a smile towards the Trumps, probably because orange makeup was dribbling onto the floor under his pew, while he had to simultaneously smell Trump’s sticky, crinkly Depends ©.

Harris will no doubt be back, and will forever be required to attend the next generation of state funerals. She treated Trump like he was some old creep who tried to pick her up at a fern bar, which he is. He was obsessed with her looks, and I am sure that was noticed by the woman sitting with him who hadn’t demonstrably had sex with him in 18 years.

I didn’t notice any super chatty moments with Dr. Jill Biden and Harris, either. Dr. Jill snubbed Harris on Veterans Day at Arlington, and she wasn’t at all subtle about it.

I saw Hunter Biden slinking behind Joe, which seemed odd, like he had been a GOP hit piece AI.

Rev. Andrew Young, a truly historic figure who had stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter as his UN Ambassador, gave a touching, seemingly noteless extemporaneous eulogy that was stunning, just because he gave it.

I found myself teary-eyed watching it, for I knew this was yet another childhood moment that has come to a close, but I also felt emotional about what this moment really meant: we are in for a hell of a ride under Trump, and if former presidents won’t engage with him, nor he with them, that says a lot about our fragile window-dressing democracy—built on norms.

Norm is a drunk guy at the Cheers Bar now.

As we lay Jimmy Carter to rest, let’s do what he fundamentally did: just be nice again.

I know that’s tough to read after what is, admittedly, a strongly-worded column, but you know what?

I wouldn't have to be this tart if the man at the end of the pew acted like a former president, or at least a human being.

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Hi, People of You Betcha! : I just had to write this, as I was so shocked by this moment. Again, greetings to the 213,980 new free subscribers from Ann Telnaes’s Substack, we welcome you to our planet. Much obliged. Have a great evening! I’m going for a walk, and trying out my new hand-me-down pasta maker. —J.