Washington DC, Dec 4, 2018 – Ordinary Americans paid respects at the historic U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday to the late U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who died last week at the age of 94 after a life of service as a World War Two hero, head of the CIA and wartime president.
Under the soaring Capitol dome, office workers and tourists walked silently past a flag-draped casket that bore Bush’s body.
It will be transported to the Washington National Cathedral early on Wednesday for a memorial service.
Bush, the 41st U.S. president, was remembered as a patrician figure who represents a bygone era of bipartisan civility in American politics.
President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, planned to visit with the mourning family at Blair House, near the White House, on Tuesday, while first lady Melania Trump will give a tour to former first lady Laura Bush of the White House’s holiday decorations.
“The elegance & precision of the last two days have been remarkable!” Trump wrote in a tweet of the Bush memorial events.
Bush, father of the 43rd president, George W. Bush, will be buried on Thursday in Texas.
Mourners lined up to enter the Capitol beginning Monday evening for the public viewing.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opened a session of the Senate on Monday heralding the “daring” former naval aviator, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and president who won the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. “Year after year, post after post, George Bush stayed the course,” McConnell said.
Bush was elected president in 1988 after serving two terms as President Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
During his four years in the White House, Bush ended Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, steered the United States through the end of the Cold War and condemned China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
But he was dogged by domestic problems, including a sluggish economy. When he ran for re-election in 1992, he was pilloried by Democrats and many Republicans for violating his famous 1988 campaign promise: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
Democrat Bill Clinton coasted to victory, ending Bush’s presidency.
A Connecticut Yankee from a wealthy family who moved to Texas to be an oilman, Bush has been eulogized as a president with a keen sense of civility and duty.
“His character speaks most, because of his character, how he handled so many important points in our history. The Iraq war, the falling of the Berlin Wall, he wasn’t (saying) that’s all about me,” Theresa Murphy, 64, a retired New York high school history teacher, said on Monday. “Can you imagine what it would look like if our president today did that?”
Bush is the 12th U.S. president to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The first was Abraham Lincoln following his assassination in 1865.
Early in his political career, Bush served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967-1971. He lost bids in 1964 and 1970 for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas.
The federal government and some financial exchanges will be closed on Wednesday for a day of mourning. – Reuters
