Peanut Farmers Not Welcome

Apparently everybody wants a free ride to Rome on Air Force One, but they won't all be going (from Drudge):

BUSH PASSED OVER CARTER IN POPE FUNERAL PICK

President Bush selected his father and Bill Clinton over Jimmy Carter for the official delegation attending the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the Carter Center claimed Late Tuesday.

"President Carter expressed to the White House a desire to attend the Pope's funeral," an official said.

Carter "was informed that the official delegation would be limited to just five people, and there were also others who were eager to attend."

"The Carters always relish the memories of Pope John Paul II being a delightful personal guest at the White House in 1979, on a pope's only visit to our nation's capital city. Subsequently, they visited with His Holiness in the Vatican."

One senior GOP official said that Carter wanted to take his wife Rosalynn along, but was informed that would be impossible. It was unclear if Clinton asked to take along his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I guess Carter will just have to buy a ticket on a commercial airline if he wants to go. Of course, had Carter won reelection in 1980, the collapse of communism in the Pope's native Poland and throughout Eastern Europe probably would never have happened. Carter would have made sure of that.

Of course, as Kate O'Beirne writes in the The Corner, Jimmuh Carter had his shot, twice, at Papal funerals and passed both times:

We shouldn't feel too sorry for former President Carter who didn't make the cut for the delegation to the Pope's funeral. After all, two popes died in 1978, and Rosalynn headed the first delegation to Pope Paul VI's funeral and his mother, Lillian led the one to Pope John Paul I's funeral. So, President Carter had his chance.