What's In A Funeral

Rocketman from Powerline brought the live-blogging skills he honed on the Miss Universe Contest to bear on the Reagan funeral - with very powerful results, in one of the best synopses of the event I've read yet.

I especially liked this part:

What would I make of it if I were a terrorist? Or, perhaps, a Frenchman? Don't screw with these people, I think is the lesson. We can bring more power and coordination to bear on a funeral than they can bring to a war. They think we are divided; they think we are weak. How many times will this happen? Why is it that America, like Ronald Reagan, like George W. Bush--and like George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, and like countless millions of young men and women from small towns all across North America, who never meant to be soldiers but who stormed beaches, scaled cliffs, shot their opponents out of the air, captured cities, overthrew dictators, freed peoples--is so persistently underestimated? I don't know. But if I were an enemy and saw today's ceremonies, I would think twice.