In death, harsh criticism gives way to fond salutes
IT’S normal to emphasize a person’s best qualities following death. What’s notable whenever prominent Republican figures die is how their memory is quickly weaponized by ideological opponents to use against current Republicans. Is it not possible to simply comment on a public figure’s life without engaging in partisan mudslinging?
This week has been filled with numerous tributes to former President George H.W. Bush, whose decency was among his greatest attributes. While many tributes have been heartfelt and focused solely on Bush, others have been little more than a backhanded way to attack current Republican leaders.
The New York Times, in editorializing on Bush’s passing, didn’t make it past the second paragraph before proclaiming there are “profound differences” between Bush and President Trump, saying the two have “almost nothing in common: the one gracious and modest, the other rude and vain; the one prudent, the other brash; the one steady, the other unmoored.”
Later in the editorial, the Times said Bush’s “good manners and amiable disposition gave way to bombast and shrill exploitation of fears of race and crime” when he was campaigning. In other words, Bush was kind of racist, but at least he’s better than Trump.
Similar thoughts were expressed by some on the left following the death of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain was invoked by many liberals as a stark contrast with Trump. Yet Democrats’ views of McCain while he was alive were not always so enthusiastic or charitable.
When McCain died, Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia who fought for civil rights in the 1960s, said McCain had been a “warrior for peace” who “will be deeply missed by people all around the world.” But in 2008, when McCain ran for president, Lewis accused McCain of fostering “an atmosphere of hate” and “hostility” like the one that led to the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era.
So a man Democrats once rhetorically linked to racial terrorists became a man they held up (once he was dead) as an improvement over current Republican leaders.
When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, a liberal group ran an ad implying he effectively shared the views of the men who had dragged a black man, James Byrd, to his death. During his presidency, the younger Bush was literally compared to Hitler. But now the younger Bush’s former critics often cite him as a contrast with Trump.
While George W. Bush may not pass away until long after the Trump presidency has ended, it’s a safe bet his former political opponents will become effusive in their praise of him as a contrast with whatever GOP leader is on the scene by then. And whenever Trump passes from the scene, he will likewise benefit from the “strange new respect” his opponents pay him in hindsight and in contrast to the current generation of Republican leaders.
Both parties pull this trick. Even so, if politicians want their critiques to be taken seriously, then they should at least try not to label every opponent as history’s greatest monster, aside from the guy now in office.