From Carter's funeral, an American snapshot: A singular image, 5 presidents, 379 years of history

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From Carter's funeral, an American snapshot: A singular image, 5 presidents, 379 years of history

2025-01-10 09:06 Last Updated At：09:13

Look at their faces — formal, etched with experience, laden with the weight of momentous decisions. Add up their years: 379 to be exact, enough time to take you back into the mid-1600s, when the notion of the American nation was still more than a century away.

Consider why they were there: to bid farewell to a member of their fraternity who was the last of his generation and whose own life began just a few years after World War I's ashes stopped smoldering.

Bill Clinton. George W. Bush. Barack Obama. Donald Trump. Joe Biden.

Inside Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, the five men who have occupied the Oval Office since 1993 convened for a rare moment together at Jimmy Carter's state funeral. In that one act, they created a momentary timeline of American history, a strand that connects them to the Roosevelts, to Lincoln and to Washington, the first of them. Visible right next to the five, too, were four people who were a heartbeat away from the same position — Dan Quayle,Al Gore, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the current vice president.

The three coequal branches of the American government were designed to transcend just one person. Yet somehow, with our love of big personalities and our elevation of the individual, the president of the United States became a different breed entirely — an amalgam of person and office that now occupies a space in the culture like no other.

The American presidency is draped in ritual. “Hail to the Chief” is played when a president enters an official event. People stand when a president comes into the room. A protective cocoon envelopes a president’s every move. Speeches are given behind a presidential seal. The office confers an aura that continues up until the moment of an elaborate, dayslong memorial.

That aura — and the fact that many have hardly been ideological kindred spirits — is what makes images like those at Carter's service so extraordinary.

Yet it's not merely that these are the fellow citizens who led Americans through the Kosovo war, through the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War, through the rise of the internet and economic calamities, climate change and pandemic. It's not that, adore them or despise them, they rose to the lead the nation and did consequential things — positive and negative — in Americans' name.

It's the precise opposite, actually.

To see these men of history shoulder to shoulder in cathedral pews shows that they're people like all of us. And on this day of mourning, in a display of unity and continuity, they dressed up for a funeral and said farewell to a touchstone of an earlier generation, To view them in a single snapshot where no one — not even the sitting president — was in charge of the proceedings serves to humanize them. It reinforces the notion that Abraham Lincoln spoke of so many years ago — “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

“The power of regular people,” Carter's grandson, Jason Carter, said in his eulogy.

In a country where political money is unfathomable in its amounts and its power, this isn't to say these five men are “regular people.” The power they commanded, command or will command astonishes.

But that power is ultimately limited, and not just by checks and balances. Whatever history thinks in the end of Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush and Clinton, it will always have the last word for the five who gathered Thursday — and the sixth, Carter, for whom they gathered.

Which doesn’t make Thursday’s image any less momentous. Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime Carter friend and adviser, had this to say about the 39th president at the service, but it probably works for all the commanders in chief in attendance: “He may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in the foothills."

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation, writes frequently about American culture. Find him online at http://twitter.com/anthonyted or https://bsky.app/profile/anthonyted.bsky.social

Venezuela's opposition leader defies Maduro to lead protests that end in confusing arrest claims

2025-01-10 09:06 Last Updated At：09:12

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado's aides said she was detained on Thursday, followed moments later by official denials of her arrest, in a confusing episode that capped a day of protests seeking to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.

It remained unclear what exactly happened after Machado bid farewell to hundreds of supporters, hopped on a motorcycle and raced with her security convoy down a main Caracas avenue.

At 3:21 p.m. local time, Machado’s press team said in a social media post that security forces “violently intercepted” her convoy. Her aides later told The Associated Press that she had been detained, and international condemnation poured in from leaders in Latin America and beyond, demanding her release.

But about an hour later, a proof-of-life, 20-second video of Machado emerged online in which she says she was followed after leaving the “wonderful” rally and had dropped her purse. Her aides later claimed in a social media post that the video message had been coerced, and that after recording it, she was freed. They said she would provide details of her “kidnapping” later.

Late Thursday, Machado in a post on X said she was “in a safe place and with more determination than ever” to continue her effort to get Maduro out of office. She also said that a person was shot "when the repressive forces of the regime arrested me.”

Machado told supporters she will explain the day's events in more detail on Friday.

Meanwhile, Maduro's supporters denied Machado had been detained, claiming that government opponents were trying to spread fake news to generate an international crisis.

“Nobody should be surprised,” Communications Minister Freddy Nanez said. “Especially since it's coming from the fascists, who were the architects of the dirty trick.”

Earlier Thursday, Machado addressed hundreds of supporters who heeded her call to take to the streets a day before the ruling party-controlled National Assembly was scheduled to swear in Maduro to a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost the presidential election.

“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united, we are not afraid,” Machado shouted from atop a truck in the capital minutes before she was reported detained.

Machado, 57, is a hard-liner and former lawmaker who stayed and fought against Maduro even after many of her allies among opposition leaders went into exile in the face of repression, joining an exodus of more than 7.7 million Venezuelans who’ve abandoned their homeland since 2013.

Loyalists who control the country's judiciary banned her from running against Maduro last year. In a deft move, she backed an unknown outsider — retired diplomat Edmundo González — who crushed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin, according to voting machine records collected by the opposition and validated by international observers.

González, invoking the title of president-elect recognized by the United States and other countries, demanded her immediate release.

“To the security forces, I warn you: don't play with fire,” he said in a social media post from the Dominican Republic, where he met with President Luis Abinader and a delegation of former presidents from across Latin America.

President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on Machado and Gonzalez's efforts. “These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!” Trump said on Truth Social.

There was a relatively small turnout for Thursday's protests as riot police were deployed in force. Venezuelans who have witnessed Maduro’s security forces round up scores of opponents and regular bystanders since the July election were reluctant to turn out in large numbers as they have in the past.

“Of course, there’s fewer people,” empanada vendor Miguel Contreras said as National Guard soldiers carrying riot shields buzzed by on motorcycles. “There’s fear.”

Demonstrators blocked a main avenue in one opposition stronghold. Many were senior citizens and dressed in red, yellow and blue, answering Machado’s call to wear the colors of the Venezuelan flag. All condemned Maduro and said they would recognize González as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

The deployment of security forces as well as pro-government armed groups known as “colectivos” to intimidate opponents betrays a deep insecurity on the part of Maduro, said Javier Corrales, a Latin America expert at Amherst College.

Since the elections, the government has arrested more than 2,000 people — including as many as 10 Americans and other foreigners — who it claims have been plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos in the oil rich South American nation. This week alone, masked gunmen arrested a former presidential candidate, a prominent free speech activist and even González’s son-in-law as he was taking his young children to school.

“It’s an impressive show of force but it’s also a sign of weakness,” said Corrales, who co-authored this month an article, “How Maduro Stole Venezuela’s Vote,” in the Journal of Democracy.

“Maduro is safe in office,” said Corrales, “but he and his allies recognize they are moving forward with a big lie and have no other way to justify what they are doing except by relying on the military.”

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, also stacked with government loyalists, declared Maduro the winner of the election. But unlike in previous contests, authorities did not provide any access to voting records or precinct-level results.

The opposition, however, collected tally sheets from 85% of electronic voting machines and posted them online. They showed that its candidate, González, had thrashed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin. Experts from the United Nations and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, both invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, have said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.

The U.S. and other governments have also recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect. Even many of Maduro’s former leftist allies in Latin America plan to skip Friday’s swearing-in ceremony.

President Joe Biden, meeting González at the White House this week, praised the previously unknown retired diplomat for having " inspired millions."

“The people of Venezuela deserve a peaceful transfer of power to the true winner of their presidential election,” Biden said following the meeting.

Goodman reported from Miami.

From Carter's funeral, an American snapshot: A singular image, 5 presidents, 379 years of history

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From Carter's funeral, an American snapshot: A singular image, 5 presidents, 379 years of history

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