Opinion | Five Presidents and a Funeral

Jimmy Carter was exactly where he wanted to be at his funeral on Thursday — at a deliberate remove from his fellow presidents.And slightly above them.When Brian Williams asked Carter in 2010 about a striking Oval Office photo of him with President Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and the Bushes, in which Carter had separated himself, he conceded he felt “superior” to the others because of his stellar post-presidency.The spectacle in Washington this week was extraordinary — a deceased president and a revived president at opposite ends of the moral scale.

Here was Carter, the righteous, ascending to heaven, as Donald Trump, the felonious, ascended again to the Oval Office.Carter’s passion for honesty was as ingrained as Trump’s addiction to lying.Even as Carter was being praised at his state funeral at the National Cathedral for working tirelessly to eradicate diseases around the globe, Trump was hunting for a disease to pin on immigrants to justify sealing the border.While the centenarian was heralded for his virtue and monogamous 77-year marriage with Rosalynn, Trump was bracing to be sentenced on his vice — falsifying records to cover up an infidelity with a porn star, conducted while Melania was home taking care of her newborn son.As Carter was praised for being prescient on climate change, Donald “Drill, Baby, Drill!” Trump maintains his archaic views even as magical neighborhoods across Los Angeles are being incinerated.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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