Lou Dobbs Rant on Presidential Funeral Excess....."Unseemly Proportions"

[leftchick]

I am not a fan of Lou but once in a while he strikes the right cord....

<snip>


And I want to offer now a few of my thoughts on the funeral of President Ford, a good and honorable man who served this nation well in uniform and in government service.

And I hope what I have to say here isn't taken the wrong way, but I'm sure there are some who will insist on doing so.

It seems to me the pomp and circumstance that is becoming a national tradition in bidding farewell to our former presidents is reaching unseemly proportions. Unseemly for any American, it seems to me, and more in keeping with European royal prerogative and pretense that the founders of this great nation renounced more than 200 years ago.

President Ford's body is lying in public repose tonight in the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And tomorrow he'll be buried near the museum. The Ford Museum and all other presidential museums are, again, it seems to me, entirely consonant with a ceaselessly televised pageant that presidential funerals have become. Museums that are modern and, in my view, lamentable monuments that rival the egoistic excess of the Egyptian pharaohs who built the pyramids, monuments that have outlasted by thousands of years their inhabitants' achievements. Let's hope the same can never be said of our presidential museums.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/02/ldt.01.html

[aquart]

1. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Can we outlaw those damned presidential libraries?

[leftchick]

5. the biggest joke and waste of millions will be g dubyas

:puke:

[xultar]

2. Why didn't he say it about Ray-Gun?

[rsmith6621]

6. Why....

So you want Clinton,Carter,Johnson.......library's outlawed as well???...Why...

[xultar]

10. Nope. I'm sayin if he's gonna complain about Ford he needs to complain

about Rayguns too.

[benddem]

12. just no more in the future n/t

[Captain Hilts]

7. That was the first state funeral since Eisenhower. nt

[BeyondGeography]

3. Earth to Lou: Excess is the American way

if you want dignity and restraint, go elsewhere.

[malaise]

14. Supersized funerals

just like everything else.

[pwb]

4. it does seem a bit much...

[MADem]

8. I think Lou might want a few lessons in how to use one of these--it ain't that hard

There are a shitload of channels to choose from...he should pick one that isn't showing the events. Gee, Faux was airing the weather (Ooooh, ain't this warm weather GRAND!!!) while the church service in Grand Rapids was starting up...CNN was covering it like a football game, with commentary, and the only one who knew how to STFU and just let the images speak for themselves was Olbermann on MSNBC. I didn't check CSPAN, but I would imagine they followed the same "Shut up and watch" technique as Olbermann did.

[MrModerate]

13. Yesterday I surfed to every news channel available . . .

About 20 of 'em.

They were all showing Ford's funeral. Even C-SPAN, for frak's sake. So I did the obvious thing and turned the idiot box off.

However, the choice to not watch doesn't absolve the media from the crime of professional ghoulism taken to an obscene level. Admittedly, Ford's was merely excessive, while Reagan's was repulsive and downright creepy. But this is still an unsettling trend that not only highlights unhealthy developments in the media-politico complex's, but exacerbates those trends. Presidents are not kings, they aren't gods, and they don't deserve pageants when they die.

[cui bono]

15. I think he was talking about the event itself, not the television coverage.

I think it was way too much hoopla myself. And if the post #7 is right, that that's the first state funeral since Eisenhower, well that's ridiculous. What did Ford do to deserve all this?

[MADem]

17. Ford's funeral dispensed with a shitload of the hoopla--see Cooley Hurd's

remarks below and my added comments below his.

[cui bono]

20. Well that's a start...

my original point still stands though. :)

[Cooley Hurd]

I have to disagree with Lou on this - we've been sending off presidents...

...with a great deal more pomp since Lincoln. His funeral lasted 20 days. They had viewings (open coffin) in several Northeast cities and, by the time they got him back to Springfield IL, his corpse had rotted so much it was scaring small children and adults alike.:puke:

[MADem]

16. I'm with you--and Ford dispensed with a LOAD of hoopla--no caisson, no horsies, no riderless horse,

no backwards boots, only one flyover (in Grand Rapids), and a hearse to haul him hither and yon. He also took the easy way into the Rotunda (up through the Senate, out through the House) rather than go up those huge stairs, like Reagan did.

Ford did a service to the nation. Yes, he made many, many mistakes in his career, he wasn't perfect, but he was one helluva lot better than his predecessor. Through the long lens of history, it's easy for some to forget just how GLAD we were to see Nixon gone. It permeated every aspect of life back then...I went to several parties that rejoiced Dick's departure. He did end our great 'national nightmare' and it was a terrible nightmare indeed.

[Rosemary2205]

9. Is this really new?

I admit, I'm not a good student of history but I thought president Lincoln basically had a 2 week funeral while his body was in transit and didn't they take FDR cross country for many many stops on a special train for quite a few days with pomp and ceremony at every stop?

[manic expression]

11. I'm surprised he didn't blame Latinos

but anyway, did he really call the Pyramids "lamentable"? That's just rich, and not even taking into account the fact that the pharaohs used the Pyramids to stimulate the economy. Yeah, the state funerals are ridiculous, most of us already know it pretty clearly, but what he said is just preposterous.

I swear, Lou Dobbs is downright delusional, at best.

[MADem]

19. I think Lou looks at EVERYTHING through economic lenses, myself

I would bet that his objections had more to do with wage and price controls, and perhaps Ford's pathetic attempt to "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) during his tenure. No doubt Lou objected to those efforts, and as a younger fellow back then he probably had all the passion of youth on the subject, and that may have colored his commentary.

I still think Lou, smart as he is, needs to learn to use the doggone remote control. He'd be happier, and we wouldn't have to hear rants that are pointless. He's such a fan of free and FAIR markets, let the market decide if the coverage is enough or too much....

[judaspriestess]

18. didn't Lou get the memo

the Ford casket is going on a world tour now. with ronald reagan as the opening act.