It looked impressive on television, but the state funeral for the late President Gerald Ford was a national disgrace that revealed a bi-partisan failure of duty, respect, and responsibility by our nation's leaders. Setting an especially horrible example was the man whose office obligates him to serve as the best example of all: President George W. Bush. The President could not---or rather, would not--- attend a solemn event to honor and pay respect to one of his predecessors, because he was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Priorities, you know.

Bush was not alone in shrugging off the chance to honor the deceased 38^th Chief Executive who served in the wake of Richard Nixon's resignation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy Senator Richard Durbin preferred to continue on their junket to examine Inca ruins. Nearly 500 of the 535 members of Congress declined to attend, including incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Washington Post counted only ten of 100 senators at the ceremony. Only two Cabinet members, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, took the effort to attend. Although all 50 governors were invited, only a few were present.

The endurance of a democracy requires that the public respect its institutions, and none is more important to the United States than the presidency. That institution has taken close to fifteen years of calculated and heightened disrespect, from the string of Clinton controversies to the disputed 2000 election to the ad hominem attacks and ridicule aimed at President Bush by the "Angry Left." At the same time, Congress has thoroughly disgraced itself with high-profile scandals. State funerals present a valuable opportunity for the nation to come together and recognize that the overwhelming majority of men and women who take on high elected office do so at great personal sacrifice and with a strong determination to serve their country, regardless of whether their efforts are distinguished or memorable.

No better example of this could be found than President Ford. He didn't seek the presidency, but was thrust into it at a critical time when respect and trust in our democratic institutions seemed to be crumbling. Ford was hardly a superior president or even, truth be told, an average one. But he did his best, did it with integrity and dignity, and was one president who could fairly say that he left the office in better shape than he found it. He was an ordinary man leading a country that was formed in the belief that ordinary men and women could govern themselves.

Every high elected and appointed official had a duty to honor Gerry Ford because of the office he held and the tradition he represented. Unlike some presidents, President Ford sacrificed his own desires for his country, and like all of them, he served at significant personal risk: in a select job in which five out of forty three occupants have been shot, Ford was the target of not one but two serious assassination attempts. But none of this mattered to President Bush, who had brush to clear on the ranch, or Senator Reid, who had a government-financed vacation to continue, or any of the scores of other senators, representatives, governors and cabinet members who preferred to watch football games or drink egg nog.

It should have mattered. The public cannot be expected to respect national institutions whose occupants show so little respect themselves.

Update: President Bush did return two days later to attend the Washington funeral service for President Ford, and the V.I.P. contingent in attendance was considerably larger than that for the state funeral ceremonies. This does not alter the Scoreboard's conclusion. Failure to meet an ethical obligation is not mitigated by fulfilling a related obligation later.