Bush To Be Buried After Four-Day Tribute

Channels Television  
Updated December 6, 2018
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are seated next to former president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, former US president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, and former president Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter during the funeral service for former US president George H. W. Bush at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC on December 5, 2018.


George H.W. Bush was to be laid to rest Thursday, concluding a four-day tribute to the 41st president that saw America briefly set aside its political divisions.









 An uneasy truce 

Since Bush’s death, Trump has traded his usual provocative posture for one of solemnity, tweeting before the service about “a day of celebration for a great man who has led a long and distinguished life.”

“He will be missed!” Trump wrote.

At the funeral, Trump and his Democratic predecessors appeared locked in an uneasy truce.

Trump arrived and shook hands with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.

But his greetings stopped there, and the body language turned cold as he failed to acknowledge Hillary Clinton, his defeated Democratic rival in 2016.

Clinton stared straight ahead and the two made no eye contact.

It was a marked contrast when Bush Jr. arrived minutes later and shook hands with the current and past presidents and their wives — and handed Michelle Obama a piece of candy, as he did during the memorial service for Senator John McCain in the same cathedral in September.

Bells tolled while the casket was carried down the aisle, as dignitaries including Britain’s Prince Charles, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Polish president Lech Walesa, and former US vice presidents and cabinet officials looked on.

Bush was a decorated World War II aviator who nearly died when he was shot down on a bombing mission.

He served as a congressman, envoy to China, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and vice president to Ronald Reagan before winning the White House.

Trump’s ascendancy to the head of the Republican Party saw him exchange vitriolic attacks with the Bushes, notably slamming the presidential son’s 2003 invasion of Iraq and mocking candidate Jeb Bush during the Republican primaries.

Bush Sr meanwhile branded Trump a “blowhard,” and revealed he did not vote for him.