Here's some genuine Nice Time for your Thursday -- George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush served as witnesses at the wedding of Bonnie Clement and Helen Thorgalsen on Saturday. The couple co-own a general store in Kennebunk, Maine. Thorgalsen posted the photo above on Facebook with the note “Getting our marriage license witnessed!” Sorry to see that Mr. Bush had to use a wheelchair, but those are some spiffy, festive star-spangled socks.
Bush's office did not release a statement, but did confirm that the former first couple "were private citizens attending a private ceremony for two friends.” In an email to WaPo, Clement said that she and Thorgalsen had known the Bushes for years and that it was thrilling when they accepted the invitation to attend the wedding.
“This is such a wonderful time for change in our legal system,” she added. “Who would be best to help us acknowledge the importance of our wedding as our friends and as the former leader of the free world. When they agreed to do so we just felt that it was the next acknowledgment of being ‘real and normal.’” Clement, 60, said she and Thorgalsen, 55, have been together for 12 years, during which she helped raise her new wife’s now-adult daughters.
Between this and his awesome gesture of support for that toddler with cancer, we are getting a pretty good opinion of GHWB as an ex-president. Now, if Barb were to kiss and make up with Al Franken, we'd really be impressed.
[ WaPo ]
Did Willie Horton sit with the bride or the bride?
I will confine myself to my standard remark when confronted with examples of latter-day GHWB "Nice Time":
Clarence Thomas.