#draped casket

HOUSTON | The Latest: Bush’s body to lie in repose all night at church

HOUSTON — The Latest on events honoring late former President George H.W. Bush (all times local):

8 p.m.

The body of former President George H.W. Bush is set to lie in repose all night at the Houston church where his family worshipped.

People lined up Wednesday night at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church to pay their respects to the nation’s 41st president, who died last week.

It’s the same church…

HOUSTON | The Latest: Pallbearers carry Bush casket into Texas church

HOUSTON— The Latest on events honoring late former President George H.W. Bush (all times local):

6:40 p.m.

As a military band played, pallbearers carried the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush into Houston’s St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where the Bush family regularly worshipped.

Wednesday night’s music included the opening notes of “Hail to the Chief.” Among those greeting…

NEW YORK | How AP photographed George H.W. Bush lying in state

NEW YORK — It’s a striking perspective of a powerful moment: the arrival of the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, surrounded by family members and dignitaries, captured from a dizzying height near the top of the dome.

The shot was made possible by a guywire, antennae, collaboration with the Architect of the Capitol and months of negotiations…

HOUSTON | In photo, Bush’s service dog honors the late president

HOUSTON— Former President George H.W. Bush’s service dog has honored his master with his own tribute in front of the late leader’s flag-draped casket.

Bush spokesman Jim McGrath posted a picture Sunday of the yellow Labrador retriever named Sully with the caption, “Mission complete.

#Remembering41.”

The 41st president died Friday at his home in Houston at 94. He will be honored during several…

WASHINGTON | The Latest: Bush’s service dog lies by flag-draped casket

WASHINGTON  — The Latest on the death of former President George H.W. Bush (all times local):

10 p.m.

President George H.W. Bush’s spokesman has posted a photo of the late president’s service dog lying in front of a flag-draped casket.

Jim McGrath posted a picture Sunday of the yellow Labrador retriever named Sully with the caption, “Mission complete.

#Remembering41.”

The nation’s 41st president…

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WASHINGTON | McCain tributes echo with criticism of Trump

WASHINGTON  — A memorial service for the late Sen. John McCain on Saturday turned into a clear rebuke of President Donald Trump’s divisive politics as his daughter, two former presidents and political dignitaries used their tributes to call for a return to civility.

“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” daughter Meghan McCain said, setting the tone for eulogies by Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

The audience of Washington power players erupted in applause. Standing near McCain’s flag-draped casket and with Trump’s daughter among the audience at Washington National Cathedral, Meghan McCain delivered a broadside against the uninvited president without mentioning his name.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said, her voice first choking back tears, then raising to anger.

The nearly three-hour service was a remarkable show of defiance against a president McCain openly defied in life. The dignitaries included three former presidents, at least four former secretaries of state and members of the House and Senate, where McCain served for more than three decades. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, also attended, while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others represented the administration in Trump’s absence.

Trump chose to head to his Virginia golf course during the service and tweeted his grievances against the FBI and NAFTA throughout the day.

McCain asked Obama and Bush to speak, choosing the Democrat and the Republican who had blocked his two bids for the White House. The former presidents drew on the senator’s legacy at home and abroad to speak of the nation’s values. Their pushback to Trump was more subtle than Meghan McCain’s but unmistakable nonetheless.

Obama spoke of the long talks he and McCain would have privately in the Oval Office and the senator’s understanding that America’s security and influence came not from “our ability to bend others to our will” but universal values of rule of law and human rights.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said in a not-so-veiled nod to Trump. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

Bush said one of the great gifts in his life was becoming friends with his former White House rival. He said they would in later years recall their political battles like former football players remembering the big game.

But mostly Bush recalled a champion for the “forgotten people” at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a “carrier of human aspirations.”

“John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” Bush said.

Washington’s past and present political elite bore witness. Among those in the front row at the cathedral were Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Dick Cheney and Al Gore.

McCain’s motorcade arrived from the Capitol, where he laid in state overnight. Along the way the procession stopped at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where McCain’s wife, Cindy, placed a wreath.

It was the last public event in Washington, where McCain lived and worked over four decades, and part of McCain’s five-day, cross-country funeral procession. He died Aug. 25 at age 81.

“This week’s celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero, I think have taken our country above all that,” said former Sen. Joe Lieberman, considered by McCain as a running mate in 2008. “In a way, it’s the last great gift that John McCain gave America.”

McCain had long urged the Senate and the polarized nation to recognize the humanity even in bitter political opponents. McCain’s request for speeches by the former presidents, to some, represents that ideal.

“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” McCain wrote in his farewell letter to the nation, read posthumously by a longtime aide. “We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”

McCain is to be buried Sunday at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, next to his best friend from the Class of 1958, Adm. Chuck Larson.

“Back,” McCain wrote on the last page of his recent memoir, “where it began.”

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/rTOwaD

PHOENIX | Mourners remember McCain at Arizona church service

PHOENIX — An estimated 3,500 mourners crowded into an Arizona church Thursday to remember Sen. John McCain after a motorcade bearing his body made its way past people waving American flags and campaign-style signs.

Family members watched in silence as uniformed military members removed the Republican senator’s flag-draped casket from a black hearse and carried it into the North Phoenix Baptist for the commemoration featuring former Vice President Joe Biden and other dignitaries.

Twenty-four sitting U.S. senators, four former senators and other leaders from Arizona were expected at the service for the maverick politician, former prisoner of war and two-time presidential candidate.

As the 11-vehicle motorcade with a 17-motorcycle police escort made its way along the 8-mile (13-kilometer) route, people held signs that read simply “McCain,” and cars on the other side of the highway stopped or slowed to a crawl in apparent tribute.

A few firefighters saluted from atop a fire engine parked on an overpass as the motorcade passed underneath on Interstate 17. One man shouted, “We love you!”

McCain died last Saturday of brain cancer at 81.

The crowd in the church stood silently as the casket was placed before a set of floral arrangements and McCain’s family entered behind it.

On Wednesday, a private service was held at the Capitol for family and friends. Cindy McCain pressed her face against her husband’s coffin, and daughter Meghan McCain erupted in sobs.

McCain sons Doug, Jack and Jimmy, daughter Sidney and daughter-in-law Renee shook hands with some of the estimated 15,000 people who filed past the senator’s casket to pay their final respects.

About 1,000 seats for Thursday’s church service were made available to members of the public who signed up.

Michael Fellars was among those awaiting the motorcade outside the church. The Marines veteran said he was also the fourth person in line Wednesday to attend the public viewing at the Capitol.

“He was about the only politician that I have ever known who cared for the people in his country, and he tried his level best to make it a better place in which to live,” Fellars said.

Honor guard member Valentine Costalez praised McCain for championing the military during his Senate career.

“He’s done so much for us,” said Costalez, who stood watch earlier this week while McCain’s body was at a funeral home.

A choir from the Jesuit-run Brophy College Preparatory school that two of McCain’s sons attended sang “Amazing Grace.”

McCain’s daughter Bridget delivered a scripture reading, and his longtime chief of staff Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general, offered a eulogy in which he talked about McCain’s “terribly bad driving” and his wicked sense of humor, which included calling the Leisure World retirement community “Seizure World.”

The music chosen for the recession was Frank Sinatra’s signature song, “My Way,” paying tribute to a man who became known for following his own path based on his personal principles.

The much smaller service at the Capitol was filled with affecting moments and demonstrations of deep respect for the statesman and Navy pilot who was held prisoner by the North Vietnamese for 5½ years after being shot down over Hanoi.

Gov. Doug Ducey remembered McCain as “Arizona’s favorite adopted son” on what would have been his 82nd birthday.

The Capitol was then opened to the public in the afternoon, allowing visitors to walk past the closed casket after waiting in line outside in temperatures that reached 104 degrees (40 Celsius).

Ray Riordan, an 87-year-old Navy veteran who fought in the Korean War, came from Payson, Arizona.

“I grew up where a handshake was a contract and your word was your bond,” Riordan said. “He represented the last of that as far as I’m concerned.”

After Thursday’s church service, a military aircraft was scheduled to take McCain’s body back east for a lying-in-state at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, a service at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday, and burial at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.