If Bob Dole were still minority leader....

[BradAllison]

.....he'd be acting just like Cocaine Mitch is now. The guy was still blowing Trump on his death bed.

Fuck him.

[Ocelot II]

1. Classy.

[obamanut2012]

3. The OP stated facts

There is no reason to respect the dead when they were not respectful or good in life.

Dole kissed Trump's ass and endorsed him, and then attacked Biden. He sucked.

[Ocelot II]

7. Former presidents Carter and Obama and current president Biden thought otherwise.

https://www.today.com/news/bob-dole-remembered-emotional-tributes-after-death-98-t242103

Maybe we should try to emulate the presidents we voted for.

[BradAllison]

12. Bob still thought TFG was better and more worthy to still be President than Joe in 2020.

At that point, you're just a complete piece of right-wing trash.

[Ocelot II]

13. Yet Biden still called him a friend.

[BradAllison]

14. Unfortunately Joe's biggest failing is counting on "the old boy Senate" crowd.

It's dead and gone. Gone.

[Hortensis]

21. Sure. Honesty and decency require considering ALL of a person,

and we all contain multitudes.

To the point in the real world, only politicians who can be friends or friendly with opponents, valuing what should be in others, are fit for office in a democracy. Required for basic competence.

Biden's and Obama's big competence versus MT Greene's and Matt Gaetz's ugly, depraved limitations. In that comparison Dole was much closer to Biden and would have been able to function and fit better in the GOP when it was a more honorable party. Greene and Gaetz never.

[Ocelot II]

23. My criteria for grave-dancing are strict, and are as follows:

1. The person must occupy a major position of political, media or other influence.

2. They must have no significant redeeming personal or professional characteristics.

3. They must have a consistent history of being destructive and/or personally terrible.

4. They must have no appreciable history of having done anything kind, altruistic or useful.

5. They must still be causing damage in some way, such that their demise would measurably improve current circumstances in some way.

6. There is no clear indication that they have real friends or people who genuinely love or respect them, apart from toadies and hangers-on.

Although I never agreed with Dole on much of anything, he does not meet those criteria. TFG does, though, and I won't feel guilty about dancing on his grave when the time comes.

[Hortensis]

27. Oh, spot on. I agree. Though I literally danced in private

when I heard Scalia died, so I'd add another: To hold off until you're sure you still feel like it.

[LeftInTX]

30. I danced for that one!

Unfortunately, I was dancing because there was a vacancy that Obama was gonna fill.

[Ferrets are Cool]

16. I am not in the political arena. I do not have to pretend to like an asshole.

And if they have an R behind their names, they are assholes. And I am being nice. I LOATHE all of them for what they have done and ARE DOING to this country.

[iemanja]

31. How it is factual?

We don't have any evidence on how he would behave today. We only know how he acted when he was minority leader. The issue is ultimately unknowable.

[LakeArenal]

5. That's that high road some Democrats take.

🙄

[BradAllison]

6. I guess I should polish a turd instead.

Obama showed him more respect while Bob kissed Trump's ring.

[LakeArenal]

8. No you said who you are. Keep it real.

No ones alerting

[beaglelover]

34. +1

Grave dancing is disgusting no matter which side does it.

[malaise]

2. Bib Dole endorsed the Slobfather

I don't need to know anything else

[empedocles]

4. Bob ['the Hatchet'] Dole

Nasty

[moondust]

9. Possibly senile.

Maybe just did what somebody there in almost completely red Kansas told him to do.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. Thanks for the anti-gay slur. Know any good prison rape jokes? NT

[Elessar Zappa]

11. I wasn't a fan of Dole.

I respect his service in WWII fighting fascists but that’s about all the good I have to say about him.

[Ferrets are Cool]

15. Pretty much sums it up. Just because they are no longer breathing are they better persons.

FUCK EVERY REPUBLICAN, living or dead. Don't like my stance....oh well.

[Polybius]

18. Lincoln an Eisenhower say "that's not nice"

Have to make exceptions.

[Ferrets are Cool]

29. Ok, let me make myself PERFECTLY CLEAR

ANY REPUG SINCE REAGAN RAN FOR OFFICE. That better?

[Polybius]

35. Way, WAY better

n/t

[Polybius]

17. He was my last time voting for a Republican in a national election before I switched Party's

Wonder if he won if we'd ever get Bush Jr. as President.

[Torchlight]

19. He wasn't my cup of long-island tea.

But I'm not that self-righteous guy who suddenly finds a new-found respect for the dead simply because they are dead, either.

During the last stages of his political career, he made damned certain Americans didn't have the same level of access to medical care he enjoyed. That's just too much blood to pretend any honor was left.

[XanaDUer2]

22. Thank you

I'm lying awake at night worried about my COBRA payment. It's almost the amount of my rent. I can thank people like Dole for that.

I doubt I'll get to live to 98.

Sorry, not sorry

[Hortensis]

24. Healthy societies mark deaths by focusing on the good they've lost.

There are very important reasons why societies develop that way, why those at funerals expect carefully respectful eulogies for even the worst. Then, after the ceremonies, in private and/or after an appropriate time has passsed, people move to the rest of the discussion.

Most important to note now, people marking death by leaping to slinging mud without any pretence of balance is a sign of health going bad, with society or hopefully with just particular gatherings or individuals.

"Look for mean people." The simplest but profound advice for people worried it's happening to theirs.

[Torchlight]

26. Those same societies celebrate death as well.

And criticize and mock the dead as well as the living. The dead never complain about it, and I doubt I will either when my times is due.

Were I in attendance at the funeral, I'd say nothing. But I'm not attending the ceremonies, which is a good thing: as I just don't have the wherewithal anymore to dress in formal sanctimony.

[Hortensis]

28. :) How to disagree but agree?

I took the message below as a hugely important a few years ago from someone who studies how free societies fell to vicious authoritarian movements:

Look for mean people.

Wish I remembered his name to read more because now mean people are almost everywhere we look.

To the point that we need to be checking our mirrors also.

[Voltaire2]

32. Oh bullshit.

Healthy societies don’t pretend a bad person is a good person just because they managed to die.

The US is virtually alone in modern western culture with its inordinate fake piety for its politicians and elites.

[Stuart G]

20. About the Republican Party??? Joseph McCarthy from the 50s..Was he a Republican or Democrat?

Now, some here may not know who Joseph McCarthy was...DO YOU???

[Ocelot II]

25. I doubt very much that there is anyone on DU who doesn't know who Joe McCarthy was.

[Hortensis]

33. Maybe posted on the wrong thread?

Fwiw, of course McCarthy was archconservative and a Republican congressman. The Democratic Party in the 1950s still included a minority caucus of hard-core Southern conservatives, a relict of the slavery era that still rejected Republicans as "Yankees" (very slow learners but good haters then also ), but McCarthy was from Wisconsin.