Jimmy Carter Funeral | Five presidents expose a fleeting image of unity

(Washington) Five American presidents gathered around the coffin of their predecessor: the national funeral of Jimmy Carter gave America on Thursday an image of unity, fleeting and ultimately misleading, eleven days before the inauguration of Donald Trump.

In the front rows of the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, the actors and actresses of all the great political convulsions of recent decades in the United States came to pay tribute to the 39^e president, died on December 29 at age 100.

Joe Biden delivered a eulogy in which it was difficult not to read a warning before the return to power of his great rival Donald Trump.

“Abuse of power”

“We have a duty to leave no room for hatred and to resist what my father considered to be the greatest sin, the abuse of power,” said Joe Biden, whom Jimmy Carter had instructed to pronounce. his eulogy.

Before the ceremony began, his predecessor and now successor spoke amiably with Barack Obama.

The former Democratic president, who was heavily involved in Vice President Kamala Harris’ ill-fated campaign against the Republican, briefly laughed in reaction to something Donald Trump said to him.

In the same row, former Democratic President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton, defeated by Donald Trump in 2016 at the end of a campaign of rare aggressiveness, which set the tone for all those that followed since.

Under the high vault of the cathedral, the litany of laudatory speeches, the solemnity of the protocol, the songs erased for a moment the divisions and violent personal enmities.

“Love and respect”

We saw Mike Pence, former vice-president of Donald Trump, shaking hands with his former boss. The image is astonishing, for those who remember that the most rabid Trumpists called for him to be hanged in January 2021, when he refused to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Also present, Kamala Harris, regularly insulted by Donald Trump during the few months of their electoral confrontation.

As well as George W. Bush, sitting in front of former Democratic Vice-President Al Gore, who conceded defeat to him in the 2000 presidential election, after a long suspense.

“He led this country with love and respect,” said his grandson Jason Carter, concluding a tender tribute.

He spoke of a simple man who lived his entire life in an unassuming home in Plains, Georgia, where plastic freezer bags were dried for reuse, and the main telephone was a cordless model. wire hanging on the kitchen wall.

This funeral closes nearly a week of mourning. Thursday was declared a day of national mourning, with federal administrations closed.

Peacemaker

Joe Biden also ordered that flags be flown at half-mast for 30 days, as is customary. They will therefore be for the inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, which the Republican criticized.

The future president paid tribute to Jimmy Carter after the announcement of his death, but has several times since denounced the decision taken by the Democrat to hand over the Panama Canal.

A one-term president (1977-1981), perceived as weak by his peers in Washington, with a domestic record often considered mediocre, Jimmy Carter established himself internationally as a peacemaker, notably negotiating the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab country, Egypt.

After his mandate, he distinguished himself in various initiatives in favor of democracy and human rights, a commitment which earned him international recognition, up to the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Jimmy Carter has been in palliative care since February 2023 in Plains, where he will be buried next to his wife Rosalynn Carter.