When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But joyful is how I hope you'll remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church.

What is it with conservatives and funerals?

First there was the memorial to Paul Wellstone which conservatives cynically morphed what was actually a joyous celebration of a political man into some sort of anti-Republican Nuremburg rally. Al Franken, who led the charge in refuting that nonsense writes about it here.

Then there was the funeral of Coretta Scott King in which conservatives jumped all over the remarks of former President Jimmy Carter regarding wiretapping as somehow disrespectful to President Bush who was sitting behind him.

Now we have the spectacle of Republican Congressmen interrupting a service to recently passed congressman Tom Lantos on the House Floor in order to try and stop the looming contempt vote later in the day on Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten. In other words they had ants in their pants to cover Bush's ass.

Conservatives seem to be either telling others what is or is not the appropriate manner to celebrate the passing of their loved ones, or acting in a manner wholly disrespectful on their own during funeral services. In either case they're obviously completely unclear on the concept. (Whether this disrespect born of willfulness or ignorance seems an unnecessary distinction although I suspect they just ultimately just don't give a rat's ass.)

People are free to celebrate the lives of their loved ones in the manner of which they want and they think appropriate without interruption by bloviating busybodies. Someday we'd hope they'd learn this. I won't be holding my breath for that day.