You know, as an Irish-American person, I have been to a couple of pretty hilarious Irish wakes. The cliche is true. Mourning the loss and celebrating the life of the person now gone is one and the same thing. I remember snorting with laughter at my Uncle Jimmy’s wake, listening to one of my cousins tell a story from Jimmy’s past. This all makes sense to me. Life is not black and white. You can laugh when you are sad. You can cry from joy. Blah blah blah. Everybody knows this.
That being said, the picture of Clinton and Mondale yukking it up (there is no other word for it) at Wellstone’s memorial service turns my stomach. Didn’t they have a sense of what that would look like? To all of us out here? Or did they not care? The stories are coming in now, of people getting up and walking out of the memorial service. They thought they were there to memorialize Wellstone, and found themselves in the middle of a rally.
Trent Lott was BOOED by the crowd when he walked in. He came to pay his respects to his old colleague, and he got booed. I don’t know, call me old-fashioned, but that is disgusting to me.
I would be saying the same thing if it were two Republicans yukking it up on the front pages of all the newspapers at a man’s MEMORIAL SERVICE.
8 people died in that plane crash. Only one of them was an elected politician. Yes, the rest were campaign workers and family members…but only ONE of those dead people is a politician. It is disrespectful and downright ugly to all those other dead people and their mourning families (who do not get to have their laughing pictures on the front page of the New York Times to validate their loss) to have this memorial service turned into a platform for campaign speeches.
I can only hope that Clinton saw that picture of himself with Mondale, head thrown back in a guffaw of delight, and winced. Just like I winced.
People DIED.
I’m disgusted. I really am.
Good morning. It’s not even 8 am yet.
