US plans ceremonies for George Bush

The United States on Saturday planned national ceremonies in honor of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st President of the United States (1989-1993), whose memory was greeted on both sides of the Atlantic.

President Donald Trump will attend the funeral, the White House announced Saturday. This participation is notable because of the incident prompted by one of the last wishes of former Republican Senator John McCain, who had specifically asked the occupier of the Oval Office not to come to his.

Trump proclaimed a day of national mourning on Wednesday, ordering federal closures that day. The flags have been placed at half-mast on all official buildings for thirty days. The stock exchanges in New York and Chicago will observe a minute of silence on Monday and will remain closed on Wednesday.

“It was really a high quality man,” said Donald Trump from Buenos Aires. “He fully lived his life, an exemplary life, that’s for sure.” The leader canceled a press conference scheduled at the conclusion of the G20, “out of respect for President Bush”.

Weakened by a form of Parkinson’s disease, George HW Bush had been moving for years in a wheelchair, never giving up a wide smile and multicolored socks. His wife, Barbara, died in April.

The full program of the next days of ceremonies had not been unveiled on Saturday.

The coffin is due to arrive in Washington aboard Donald Trump’s presidential plane, the leader said. The general public will be able to gather of Monday evening to Wednesday morning, in the rotunda of the Capitol, which will remain open permanently. A ceremony in the National Cathedral of Washington will then take place, then the body will be brought back to Texas for burial, probably at College Station, where the Bush Presidential Library is located.

His last words were for his eldest son, reported James Baker, who was Bush Sr. Secretary of State, The New York Times. He was bedridden at home, surrounded by relatives, conscious but weakened.

His son and former president George W. spoke to him on the phone. “I love you too,” said the father, before going off.

– Beat by Clinton –

In the United States, Republicans and Democrats hailed in him the incarnation of a political tradition less virulent and partisan than at the present time. Many recalled that he was an aviator at the age of 18, during the Second World War, and had served his country for decades as a parliamentarian, CIA chief or UN ambassador.

It was hard not to read in some statements a criticism hollow of the current occupant of the White House. Republican Senator Bob Corker noted that the former president “was reaching out to his political opponents”.

Barack Obama recalled his defense of immigrants and the disabled, and affirmed that his “stable and diplomatic hand” had made it possible to end the Cold War “without firing a shot”.

President Bush has only one mandate. Then Ronald Reagan’s vice president, he was elected in 1988 but rejected by voters four years later, beaten by Bill Clinton.

The flags have been lowered to half-mast for thirty days in the United States, as here in the White House on December 1, 2018.

His four years in power are marked by the first Gulf War. At the head of a coalition of 32 countries, he drives out Iraqi troops of Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait during a war of a few weeks in 1990.

The Iraqis still remember him as “Mr. Embargo”, because of the heavy economic embargo imposed until the second Gulf War, launched by his son.

In domestic politics he is damned by the breaking of a campaign promise. He had made a solemn commitment never to raise taxes … which he could not respect, having to reconcile with a Congress in the hands of the Democrats.