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The Washington Post (web site)

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 1611 mots, p. NA

At farewell to Bush, a yearning for decency,

moderation and compromise.
By Marc Fisher;Marissa J. Lang;Elise Viebeck

Byline: Marc Fisher;Marissa J. Lang;Elise Viebeck

They stood before his casket as directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, which he had led, and
as members of Congress and diplomats, which he had been, too. They came to attention as World
War II veterans, including former senator Bob Dole, who rose from his wheelchair, jaw quivering, to
deliver a quick, crisp salute. Mostly, they offered a final farewell to George Herbert Walker Bush as
fellow Americans, eager to honor decency, moderation and a commitment to making things work,
all of which he embodied.

The Capitol Rotunda was open to all Tuesday, and they came in a manner befitting the 41st
president -- not in huge numbers, but steadily; with grace and seriousness of purpose; with
nothing disparaging to say, but with a recaptured sense that, even now, we're all in this together.

Bush was not a man who engendered powerful passions from supporters or opponents. Yet there
were tears on this day, and voices that cracked, and hearts that yearned for a time when politics
was perhaps less a blood sport and more a means of finding solutions.

The card handed to each mourner listed Bush's six major federal positions, his Navy service in
World War II and his degree from Yale. It was a resume of sorts, and for many visitors, that reminder
of his pedigree was a powerful marker of what defined Bush, a searing statement about
something that has fallen out of American politics.

Every president since Bush has run for office as an outsider, as someone who sought to clean up
Washington's mess by bringing a fresh perspective to the job. But for many of those who paid a
final visit to Bush, he was, as the ultimate insider, the consummate counter to that argument.

"People need to see that experience, see everything the government does, including the military,"
said Donna McGowan, 61, a Philadelphia resident who spent 37 years working for the
Environmental Protection Agency. "Somehow, we lost that. Having experience is a good thing, not
something to be ashamed of."

McGowan and her friend Linda Baric, also an EPA retiree, stopped by to bid Bush farewell not
because they necessarily agreed with his politics, but because they admired his moderation, in
politics and in manner.

They worked for a long line of presidents and considered Bush neither the best nor the worst at
caring for the environment, but that wasn't the issue Tuesday. "It doesn't matter if you agree with
him," McGowan said. "This is something an American should do. He was a hero. He was a good
man. I watched his son -- he looked so sad, I had tears running down my face."

The crowds were steady, if nothing close to the epic queue that stretched nearly to the Washington
Monument following the death of Ronald Reagan in 2004. This was a tribute closer to the size of
those for Gerald Ford, the last president to lie in state, or for Sen. John McCain, who died three

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months ago.

Whatever their numbers, the mourners came from across the nation, some with specific memories
of a president who had somehow touched their lives, some too young to remember his four years
in office yet still committed to the idea that a president must be honored, no matter his politics.

They were federal workers, ID badges hanging from their necks; tourists just off the buses that ply
the Mall; large families dressed up for the occasion; joggers who detoured off their usual morning
course to honor their country's former leader.

They came because he was the last president to serve in World War II, or because he made the
Americans With Disabilities Act the law of the land, or because they had seen him campaign in
their hometowns, or because they admired how he and his wife, Barbara, showed their love for
each other. Or they came because Bush was as different from Donald Trump as they could
imagine a president might be.

Some people shuddered at the idea of Trump attending Wednesday's funeral, sitting alongside
two former presidents who were depicted behind prison bars in a tweet that Trump passed along
to his 56 million followers a week ago.

"What bothered me more than anything, being here and seeing all the military standing at
attention for him, was thinking about that whole kinder, gentler thing about him," McGowan said.
"He was always, 'Let's work this out.' He wasn't ever there to blow up the world. He was always
looking for a way to get to the middle, to get things done, just like McCain."

David and Sandra Bertetti, who live in Andover, Mass., where Bush attended the Phillips Academy
prep school -- as did three of his sons, said walking into the Rotunda and seeing the crisp military
ritual and the somber mood of the crowd reminded them that, as Sandra said, "Our current
president is not welcome to us."

"We've lost our regard for integrity, honor," she said.

David Bertetti, a retired electrical engineer who recalled seeing Bush deliver a speech at Phillips,
was reminded of his own grandfather's arrival in the United States from Italy in the 1890s. "George
Bush had a welcoming, gracious idea of our country," he said. "I don't think there's any way my
grandfather conceivably could have met Donald Trump's idea of who should come into this
country."

Bush represented a way of doing politics that many visitors refused to believe has vanished forever.

"Some people may look down on it these days, when it seems like we've lost a sense of heritage
and duty, of where we came from," said Dick Patten, president of the American Business Defense
Council, which represents family businesses and farms in Washington.

His voice broke as he recalled Bush's devotion to finding a middle course. "President Bush was
about service, and that's what we're missing today, service, in everything we do, in our
communities, to our church. Just being nice. He embodied that, in an incredible way. And that's
why I came here," Patten said.

Bush sometimes joked about his patrician upbringing, a Connecticut Yankee from a wealthy family
that attended all the right schools and held certain expectations about service and duty.

Daniel Bean, 63, a federal worker who runs through the center of the capital each morning, steered
off his usual route to pay his respects. Bush always struck him as "very refined, I would say. I was
quite impressed with his demeanor. You just don't see that anymore."

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Two Georgetown University freshmen visited the late president together despite their own political
differences. Henry James, 18, of San Francisco, who leans left, and Daniel Kim, 18, of Atlanta, who's
more inclined to the right, weren't born yet when Bush served, but they waited nearly an hour to
visit a president they both see as a model of civility and bipartisanship.

"It's something we can all respect and aspire to in our own lives," James said. Kim agreed,
explaining that he and his friend had each succeeded in pulling the other closer to the opposite
side.

As night fell, leaving only a few more hours to pay respects at the Capitol before Wednesday's
funeral at Washington National Cathedral, the president's family returned for another visit, Bush's
dog Sully stood guard for a time, and people who had worked for Bush as personal aides gathered
around the casket.

Former president George W. Bush, his wife, Laura, and one of his brothers, former Florida governor
Jeb Bush, returned to the Rotunda on Tuesday evening, hugging former aides and shaking hands
and thanking people in the public viewing queue.

Mourners included sports figures such as Jack Nicklaus, Chris Evert and Tony La Russa; McCain's
widow, Cindy; former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell; a delegation of National
Park rangers and D.C. firefighters. But the vast majority of those who came held no title and had
never met the man.

Jon Cline, 57, hadn't even voted for Bush, but he came because he had admired how the president
handled the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union -- with restraint and quiet
diplomacy, designed to allow all parties to save face.

The passing of a president is always an occasion for nostalgia, and the rougher spots in a man's
biography tend to be smoothed over for a time. Bush was president between two larger-than-life
celebrities, Reagan and Bill Clinton, polished orators who skillfully deployed emotional appeals to
win Americans' hearts. Bush, by contrast, had an awkward relationship with words, and yet for
many who came to see him, that tangled way of expressing himself was exactly what made him
seem authentic, connected.

Dale "Chip" McElhattan came to the Capitol with a framed photograph of his wife, son and Bush --
an image taken during McElhattan's stint as regional secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Singapore in
the 1990s. The president had visited the embassy to thank Marines posted there for their service.
On Bush's way out, he stopped to pose with McElhattan and his family.

More than two decades later, McElhattan, who lives in Vienna, Va., said the picture reminds him of
what leadership looks like. "It's one thing to take the time for dignitaries and heads of state," he
said. "But when the president of the United States takes the time to relate to the security guy at
the embassy? It just says so much, how you treat the regular people."

Mark Berman and Arelis R. HernA ndez contributed to this report.

Aussi paru dans 4 décembre 2018 -

Chris Evert Donald Trump

Encouragée très jeune par son père J'ai viré beaucoup de gens
lui-même joueur de tennis Propriétaire d'un véritable empire

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professionnel, Christine Marie Evert, immobilier, Donald Trump règne sur

davantage connue sous le nom de les hôtels, casinos et grands
Chris Evert, connaît la gloire très complexes de New York. C'est son
rapidement. Après une série ... père, entrepreneur prospère ...

George Bush George W. Bush

Read my lips : no new taxes Fils de Je crois que vous m'avez mal
Prescott Sheldon Bush, sénateur du sous-estimé Diplômé de Yale et
Connecticut, et de Dorothy Walker, titulaire d'un MBA de Harvard, il
George Bush grandit au sein du débute sa carrière professionnelle
domaine familial à Greenwich. dans l'industrie du pétrole. George
Diplômé de la ... W ...

Gerald R. Ford Henry James

Notre long cauchemar national est Inscrit à Harvard, Henry James doit
fini Dès son plus jeune âge, Gerald R. renoncer à ses études de droit par
Ford - né Leslie Lynch King, Jr - suite d'une lésion à la colonne
semble promis à un brillant avenir. vertébrale. "Rat de bibliothèque"
Intelligent, sportif et déterminé, il se depuis son plus jeune âge, il trouve ...
...

Jack Nicklaus Ronald Reagan

Citation(s) : Concentre-toi sur les J'aime toutes les couleurs, à

solutions et non sur les erreurs. Le condition que ce soit du rouge
défi du golf, c'est d'accepter d'être Ronald Reagan n'est pas "tombé
imparfait. Le golf est un jeu où il est dans la politique étant petit". Son
... père, Jack, est vendeur de
chaussures, catholique ...

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sur le droit d'auteur et son utilisation est régie par ces lois et conventions.

Certificat émis le 9 décembre 2018 à

UNIVERSITE-PARIS-I-PANTHEON-SORBONNE à des fins de visualisation
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news·20181204·GWAAF·564325611

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