Where’s Jimmy?

In the sea of people attending Pope John Paul II’s funeral, you won’t find former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize winner, first American president to welcome a pope to the White House and as much a defender of human rights and an advocate for the poor as the late pope.

President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush will attend the Friday funeral Mass, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the elder former President Bush (41) and the president’s father’s new best friend, Bill “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” Clinton.

Carter, whose moral compass on matters of living his Baptist faith and keeping to his marital vows has never been questioned, got shut out.

The White House maintains that Carter wasn’t snubbed by Bush. “We would have been more than happy to have him,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said this week. “It was his decision to make.”

Uh-huh.

A Carter Center spokesman simply stated that the former president “was quite willing to withdraw his request when he was subsequently informed that the official delegation would be limited to just five people, and there were also others who were eager to attend.”

It’s really a shame that the president couldn’t set aside his political differences with Carter to share a historic and symbolic moment to show the world what democracy means.

Sure, there’s no love lost between these two former presidents. Carter made it clear during the 2000 election fiasco, when Bush won by a sliver of votes after the Supreme Court put an end to any recounts, that Florida’s voting system was akin to a Banana Republic. (In hindsight, he was right.)

For all the harsh words that Carter has uttered about Bush’s presidency — and he did that with relish at the Democratic National Convention last summer when Carter blasted Bush for going to war in Iraq — there’s no denying that Carter has sought to inspire democratic reforms throughout the world. He set out to do, in many things, what Pope John Paul II called people of faith to do: help the poor, speak up for justice.

Is Carter sometimes naive in his embrace of dialogue with ruthless dictators in an effort to bring democratic change? Sure.

I, for one, am not convinced about the transparency of the last Venezuelan election that Carter claimed was on the up and up despite reports of irregularities. Nevertheless, he was a U.S. president who was highly regarded by the pope, perhaps not for his lackluster diplomatic skills but certainly for his tireless work toward achieving peaceful change.

Bush missed an opportunity to prove he doesn’t hold grudges simply because of differences of opinion in public policy. Instead, he showed himself to be petty at a time when the world is grieving the passing of a pope who went so far as to kiss the feet of the man who tried to kill him.

So Bush is no holy man. He’s a tough politician who insists on loyalty, even from his political enemies. It’s no secret that the president appreciates that Clinton has been relatively mum on Iraq. Clinton has his own reasons. He has his own reputation to defend, after all. Many Republicans continue to blame the Democrat for not doing enough to catch Osama bin Laden before The Reckoning of 9-11.

All of that aside, Bush should have made sure Carter was part of the official delegation. The pope’s funeral is one occasion that cries out for a statesman, not a partisan. In the spirit of the holy man he came to Rome to honor, Bush should have turned the other cheek.