It is customary and appropriate when a former head of state dies that the U.S. will send, as representatives to the funeral, former high U.S. officials who personally new and worked with the deceased. That was done in the case of the Thatcher funeral. The U.S. sent two former Secretaries of State who had both known and worked with Thatcher. Ronald Reagan would have been the ideal representative had he not proceeded her in death and had he not had dementia. Obama came along too late to have known and worked with Thatcher. Of course he would have had the option of attending her funeral, but generally speaking Presidents opt out of playing a strictly ceremonial role when foreign dignitaries dies, just as you or I would generally not attend a funeral of someone we did not personally know. It certainly was not a snub for Obama to not have attended Thatchers funeral. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if several former U.S. presidents attend the funeral service for Nelson Mandela. If they do, it will be because they want to pay their respects, not because they feel obligated to go. Thatcher was certainly a very important figure in British politics, but the esteem with which she was held world wide would hardly be comparable to the esteem with which Mandela was held.
Via a transcript from Limbaugh's website: Without Mandela there might not have been an Obama? I'll tell you who's putting this out there. It's Obama doing everything and anything he can to link himself to Mandela, and the Clintons are the same thing. We got a nickname for him, The Funeral Crashers. I mean, they'll show up anywhere where there's a camera. This kind of stuff, the Drive-Bys, I'm telling you, they're doing everything they can to make the news of Mandela's death all about Obama.
I doubt he would be a person you would be interested in. However if you're at all curious about him, you can find a great deal written about him on the internet.
I was being facetious. Anyway, here we go. Rest In Whitewash: Networks Set to Ignore Mandela's Communist Party Ties, Dictator Friends By Tim Graham | December 7, 2013 | 19:07 At the Daily Beast, Michael Moynihan attempted to overcome the tendency of journalists and celebrities to make Nelson Mandela a secular saint. Moynihan recalled that when Margaret Thatcher died, these same people denounced her for here "indulgence" of right-wing dictators like Agosto Pinochet in Chile, who allowed his country to become a democracy. ABC called her reign an âelective dictatorship.â NBC reported several times that âDing Dong! The Witch Is Deadâ became a popular iTune after she passed away, and CBS predicted the funeral would be a "tense and controversial affair." It's safe to guess these networks wouldn't dream of recalling Mandelaâs associations with despots like Fidel Castro and Muammar Qaddafi, as Moynihan insisted they should: So Mandela was painfully slow in denouncing the squalid dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. He was rather fond of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (it wonât take you long to find photos of the two bear-hugging each other in Havana) and regularly referred to Libyan tyrant Muammar Qaddafi as âBrother Leader of the Revolution of the Libyan Jamahariya.â It was on a return visit to Robbin Island, when Mandela, as president, announced with appalling tone deafness that he would invite both Castro and Qaddafi to South Africa... Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-gr...as-communist-party-ties-dictato#ixzz2mtpr8xtB Hey pie hole, did you know Mandela was pro photo voter ID?