YES, HAVE YOU  NOTICED? – AT 12:30 P.M. ET:  The great Michael Goodwin remarks on how Democrats truly love Republicans, as long as they're 1) dead and 2) were anti-Trump.  From the New York Post: 

He was a patriot, a hero, a ­genial gentleman and a great American. You can’t pick up a newspaper or go near a television without hearing leftists gush with praise for the late President George H.W. Bush. Who knew they felt this way?

And you are not mistaken if the outpouring of previously unknown affection for the first President Bush sounds familiar. That’s because it is almost identical to the loving send-off the same suspects gave Sen. John McCain after he died in August.

It all just goes to prove that Democrats and their media handmaidens really do love Republicans — when they’re dead. All the more so if, when they were alive, they ­opposed President Trump.

There were reports that both Bush and McCain voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. See, good Republicans.

McCain’s feud went beyond the grave, when it became known that he did not want Trump at his funeral. McCain got extra love for that ­final bit of pettiness.

Paradoxically, Bush gets extra credit because he wanted Trump at his funeral, even though both gestures are seen as a rebuke to the current president. In this case, Bush is hailed for rising above pettiness.

There is another phony dimension in the media’s praise for Bush and McCain in that both were said to epitomize a less toxic time in politics. While it’s true that politics wasn’t always as vicious as it is now and that Democrats and Republicans actually socialized frequently, the mainstream media didn’t share in that bipartisan bonhomie when it came to coverage.

Even then, their bias tilted left, although their double standard has reached new depths in recent years. I believe the press corps’ lapdog approach to Barack Obama and attack-dog approach to Trump are part of why Americans have become so polarized.

Indeed, many Trump voters ­explain their support for him as a reaction to left-wing press bias and the failure of other Republicans to fight back the way Trump does.

The heydays of press hatred for Bush and McCain came during their presidential campaigns. Long before they were saluted for their late-in-life stances against Trump, Bush 41 and McCain were declared unfit to be president.

And...

There is, of course, nothing wrong in saying something nice about the recently departed. Eulogies are not the time or place to seek balance.

The problem emerges when the partisan lens becomes the decisive factor in switching from damnation to praise. Then it is hypocrisy masquerading as principle and grace.

COMMENT:  Not only is the media hypocritical, you get the feeling that many of its employees, or colleagues, or comrades, or whatever they like to be called, really have very little knowledge of any president before Emperor Barack, and less interest.  Actually knowing something seems increasingly unimportant in an age when "Google it" is seen as the gateway to wisdom.

But the sheer press phoniness surrounding the passing of both John McCain and Bush 41 must break some kind of record. 

I wonder what will happen when Trump eventually passes on.  "Empire builder."  "Spoke truth to power."  "Built a great economy."  I can't wait to see the old, gray heads at CNN discover their inner Donald.  And when the aging Melania makes her way down the church aisle, the wailing about her "graceful presence" will make it even worse, or better.

There is always room for comedy.

December 6,  2018