Anyone care to speculate what Carter's state funeral will look like compared to Reagan's? I think we will need shorthand for "barf alert".
Taking for granted the fact that the press coverage will be thoroughly adulatory and hagiographical, here's how it'll go.
They'll carry his body out of some humble looking building on his peanut farm.
The great man of the people will be in a simple pine box, followed by his grieving widow.
Look for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or some other poverty pimp to be perhaps a pallbearer and certainly a eulogist.
There will be long lines of black people watching the procession mournfully - the cameras will focus on these mourners and emphasize "how different the tone is here compared with the Reagan funeral . . . all kinds of Americans loved Jimmy Carter . . . "
There will be films about Habitat for Humanity shown at the service. Speakers will include homeless people that Jimmy helped house, foreign dignitaries from all the usual suspects will speak about how much he has contributed to international understanding.
Kofi Annan will weep openly and break down as he tries to describe his good friend Jimmy.
And on and on.