Only in the late empire could a vast, six-day militarist extravaganza be called humble, spare, and lacking in pomp and circumstance. As Murray Rothbard noted about Nixon, all presidents upon their deaths enter the pantheon, to be divinized in the manner of the Romans.
Note: the modern pageant was enshrined when JFK’s handlers decided to copy Lincoln’s military-monarchical funeral.
9:15 am on January 2, 2007
