[guest post by Dana]

Sad news:

“A former first lady of the United States of America and relentless proponent of family literacy, Barbara Pierce Bush passed away Tuesday, April 17, 2018, at the age of 92,” reads a statement from the office of former President George H.W. Bush.

Mrs. Bush served as the country’s first lady from 1989 to 1993. She passed away shortly after deciding to forgo further medical treatments for her failing health.

Her funeral will be held at St. Martin’s Church in Houston, when she and the former president have been devoted members for decades.

She had been battling various illness, including congestive heart failure and pulmonary disease, and just this past Sunday her office released a statement saying that Mrs. Bush would no longer be seeking medical treatment but rather comfort care instead.

Mrs. Bush was sharp woman who knew, really knew what mattered most in this life:

“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal,” she said. “You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.”

One of the most powerful glimpses into the strength and grace of Barbara Bush came when she wrote about the passing of her daughter Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush who died of leukemia in 1953 at 3 years old:

“Eventually the medicine that was controlling the leukemia caused other terrible problems. We called George, and by the time he got there after flying all night, our baby was in a coma. Her death was very peaceful. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone. I truly felt her soul go out of that beautiful little body. For one last time I combed her hair, and we held our precious little girl. I never felt the presence of God more strongly than at that moment.”

Now Barbara Bush is not only in the presence of God, but she is also reunited with her beloved Robin. May God give the surviving Bush family members, especially George H.W. Bush, her husband of 72 years, the peace and comfort that passes all understanding.

I’l leave you with a sample of Mrs. Bush’s wit from last month’s Smith College alumnae magazine:

“I have had great medical care and more operations than you would believe. I’m not sure God will recognize me; I have so many new body parts!”

You can read some of the many tributes to Mrs. Bush here.

(PS: If you have nothing nice to say, just don’t say anything.)

–Dana

[ADDENDUM by JVW]

I think that for the very first time ever, all three of us (Patterico, Dana, and I) independently composed posts on Mrs. Bush’s passing. I won’t put mine up, but I wanted to add this little bit from it, since it is my favorite memory of her:

When I was finishing my sophomore year, Mrs. Bush was invited to give the commencement address at Wellesley College. Many members of the faculty and the graduating class complained, reasoning that Mrs. Bush was a poor role model for young feminists because she left Smith without a degree in order to marry the future forty-first President. Even in the days before social media, the complaints still managed to attract national attention, and in a foreshadowing of what has since come to be commonplace, there soon emerged a pretty strong divide between those siding with the protesters and those who found the complaint to be at best specious and at worst patronizing in an entirely unearned manner. The Wellesley administration manfully soldiered on and refused to disinvite Mrs. Bush from speaking. After meeting with some of the protesting students to partially defuse the situation (disclosure: I knew one of the young ladies who was a protest leader), Mrs. Bush gave a speech that offered a full-defense of life as a wife and mother — a speech that it is almost impossible to imagine anyone having the guts to make on any college campus outside of Liberty or Ave Maria or Hillsdale or maybe BYU in this day and age:

For several years you’ve had impressed upon you the importance to your career of dedication and hard work, and of course that’s true. But as important as your obligations as a doctor, a lawyer, a business leader will be, you are a human being first and those human connections with spouses, with children, with friends are the most important investment you will ever make.

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent.

Having been told by the protesters that she wasn’t worthy of addressing them at this important event, Mrs. Bush gently yet deftly won most of them over with her wit and charm. After first acknowledging that she wasn’t their first choice — “Now I know your first choice today was Alice Walker — guess how I know? Known for The Color Purple. Instead, you got me, known for the color of my hair!” — she closed her speech with a perfectly-delivered one-liner which dominated the next news cycle and reminded everyone that Barbara Bush was a formidable adversary:

– JVW

Barbara Bush has died. Her son George W. had this to say:

My dear mother has passed on at age 92. Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I are sad, but our souls are settled because we know hers was. Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love, and literacy to millions. To us, she was so much more. Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end. I’m a lucky man that Barbara Bush was my mother. Our family will miss her dearly, and we thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.

RIP.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

Brian Stelter of CNN is getting huffy about yesterday’s revelation that Sean Hannity may have used President Trump’s personal lawyer for legal advice without telling viewers. And Brian Stelter of CNN wants you to know that he is deeply disturbed by this unethical lack of disclosure:

While his off-air relationships might be just a logical extension of Hannity’s on-air cheerleading for Trump, it still came as a surprise, immediately raising questions about both Hannity and Fox.

By any standards of any normal newsroom, the Cohen-Hannity relationship is a glaring conflict of interest.

Fox is not a normal newsroom. And Hannity’s viewers are not typical news viewers — people who watch almost any other show would likely feel lied to when they learned something like this had not been disclosed to them, but Hannity’s want him to have this kind of relationship with Trumpworld.

This comes from Brian Stelter.

Of CNN.

You see the problem? If not, let me sum it up in two words:

Corey Lewandowski.

In June 2016, after Lewandowski left the Trump campaign, he was hired by CNN to be a political commentator. Here’s what one Brian Stelter from CNN said at the time:

There are also swirling questions about whether Lewandowski is still bound to Trump somehow.

Like other Trump employees, he signed a non-disclosure agreement that ensures he will not share confidential information.

The agreement likely included a “non-disparagement clause,” impeding his ability to criticize Trump publicly.

On Thursday night, in his first appearance as a CNN commentator, anchor Erin Burnett asked about the existence of such a clause, and Lewandowski declined to answer directly.

Meaning, of course, that he had one. Does this mean that Brian Stelter opposed the hire? Judge for yourself by reading the last line of his piece:

Adding Lewandowski is another way to ensure ideological diversity on the air. His perspective might be uniquely valuable given that he was Trump’s right hand man up until this week.

LOL. Cue the eternal cry of the hypocritical leftist: But that’s different!

But it got worse. In September, ABC News reported that Lewandowski was still receiving payments from the Trump campaign, even as he gave commentary about Trump on CNN:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign paid former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s company $20,000 in consulting fees in August, campaign filings show.

Lewandowski was fired as Trump’s campaign manager on June 20 . . . Days after the firing, CNN hired Lewandowski as an on-air political commentator, a position he holds currently.

Trump’s campaign finance filing shows a $20,000 payment made to Lewandowski’s company, Green Monster Consulting, LLC, on August 11 for the purpose of “strategy consulting.”

Did CNN immediately fire Lewandowski? No, CNN did not. Indeed, Lewandowski stayed on until days before the election, ultimately resigning in November. As one Brian Stelter from CNN reported:

Lewandowski brought unique first-hand experience running a historic presidential campaign. But some viewers — and even some CNN staffers — felt Lewandowski never should have been hired at all.

Lewandowski was bound by a non-disclosure agreement that impeded his ability to criticize Trump publicly. He also received severance payments from the campaign.

CNN President Jeff Zucker stood by the decision to hire Lewandowski, pointing out that it was critical to have ideological diversity on the airwaves.

Which sounds a lot like Stelter’s own quote (already noted above), when Lewandowski was hired: “Adding Lewandowski is another way to ensure ideological diversity on the air.”

You know what you did not see from Stelter? A passage like this one, in which I take Stelter’s commentary about Hannity and rewrite it for the Lewandowski situation:

While his off-air relationship with Cohen might be just a logical extension of Lewandowski’s on-air cheerleading for Trump, it still came as a surprise, immediately raising questions about both Lewandowski and CNN.

By any standards of any normal newsroom, the Trump campaign’s payments to (and non-disparagement clause with) Lewandowski relationship constitute a glaring conflict of interest.

CNN is not a normal newsroom. And Lewandowski’s fans are not typical news viewers — people who watch almost any other show would likely feel lied to when they learned something like this had not been disclosed to them, but Lewandowski’s fans want him to have this kind of relationship with Trumpworld.

You did not see anything like that in any of Brian Stelter’s pieces. You did not see him calling Lewandowski’s arrangement a “glaring conflict of interest.” You did not see him claiming that CNN is not a normal newsroom. Instead, you saw him praising the Lewandowski hire.

What do you know? He has a different standard for Fox News than he has for his own employer!

Which is to be expected. Just don’t expect us to take your moral preening seriously, Brian Stelter. You guys are hardly the angels you’re trying to appear to be. And we all know it.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]