Both Bush and Rummy both skipped out on fords funeral.

[Eugenics 5,000+ posts]

until now i looked upto george bush.

Click to read more...

 

[siliconinja 10+ year member]

wow... this is what tipped you over? not the excessive vacations in texas, his useless wars, rediculous policies, idiotic speaches?

 

[Eugenics 5,000+ posts]

wow... this is what tipped you over? not the excessive vacations in texas, his useless wars, rediculous policies, idiotic speaches?

give him a break, everyone makes mistakes!

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

WASHINGTON: George W. Bush sent his apologies - he was too busy cutting wood and riding his bike - and almost 500 of the 535 members of Congress also had more pressing engagements, as the state funeral for Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the US, was held in Washington yesterday.While Ford's widow, Betty, was joined by Vice-President Dick Cheney in the Capitol Rotunda, most members of the political establishment were notable for their absence.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy, Richard Durbin, opted to continue with a visit to Inca ruins in South America. Incoming house speaker Nancy Pelosi pardoned herself, and six of the nine members of the Supreme Court, including John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by Ford, were nowhere to be seen.

To make matters worse, there was a last-minute scramble to rally enough pallbearers. A spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld said the former defence secretary had missed a flight, and if fellow pallbearer James Baker was there, he was keeping a low profile.

Only Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez were on hand to represent the Bush cabinet team. A spokesman for Mr Bush said the President would attend another service tomorrow, but that did little to placate political commentators.

Doesn't look like he had alot of friends.... I wonder if reagan had similar attendance....

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

Gee i wonder if the post mortem release of the Woodward interview where Ford slammed the administration had anything to do with that?

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire ****ation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

The Ford interview -- and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 -- took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondly recalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheney and Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursued in more recent years.

"He was an excellent chief of staff. First class," Ford said. "But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious" as vice president. He said he agreed with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell's assertion that Cheney developed a "fever" about the threat of terrorism and Iraq. "I think that's probably true."

Describing his own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Ford said he would not have gone to war, based on the publicly available information at the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. "I don't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer."

complete article,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122701558.html

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

Gee i wonder if the post mortem release of the Woodward interview where Ford slammed the administration had anything to do with that?

I doubt it, it probably has more to do with the second funeral on Tuesday and the fact that funerals aren't any fun....

but maybe that's why Nancy Pelosi and Durbin didn't show

 

[Eugenics 5,000+ posts]

he still should've gone.

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

I doubt it, it probably has more to do with the second funeral on Tuesday and the fact that funerals aren't any fun....
but maybe that's why Nancy Pelosi and Durbin didn't show

No, they probably didnt show because he pardoned Nixon.

I saw where the Governor of South Dakota went.. and i thought "Nice way to get a taxpayer funded vacation to DC, for him and his family"

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

No, they probably didnt show because he pardoned Nixon.
I saw where the Governor of South Dakota went.. and i thought "Nice way to get a taxpayer funded vacation to DC, for him and his family"

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif hehe...

yah, just doesn't seem like he made alot of friends... or maybe our 24/hour news cycle just needs something better to report about....

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

Well he was the only president to take office without winning the election.. oh wait... well he was until W //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[Rmsanger 10+ year member]

until now i looked upto george bush.

I agree with you here... I'm not a fan of GW but I'd still show up at his funeral if I was a politician. All Presidents should at least be givent that amount of respect.

Was Clinton there?