Get ready for a shocker, ladies and gents, as I am about to offer a good word for the next president of the United States.
Donald J. Trump said this week he plans to attend the funeral of the late President Jimmy Carter.
OK, it’s not a huge deal. Trump should be there. He says he will go. What’s remarkable is that he said so quietly, in a statement. He made no big splash, no grand proclamation calling attention to himself.
I am going to presume he’ll join the other men who have held the presidency: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The incumbent president, Joe Biden, will deliver the keynote eulogy honoring his predecessor, with whom he forged a remarkable friendship dating back to when Biden first entered the U.S. Senate in 1973.
In what has to be the most moving element of the funeral will occur when the sons of two high-profile politicians deliver memorials on behalf of their fathers. Ted Mondale, son of former Vice President Walter Mondale, will read his late father’s eulogy he wrote years ago. Steve Ford, son of the late former President Gerald Ford, will do the same.
Walter Mondale and Gerald Ford expected Carter to precede them in death. He outlived them both, but they wrote the eulogies in case he did.
I won’t be fixated on Donald Trump’s presence among the attendees. I am, however, glad to see him take a moment to honor a good, decent and most honorable man as the nation and the world bid him a fond farewell.