Washington ? As the funeral for a Republican president prepared to collide with the installation of a new Democratic Congress, federal officialdom scrambled Friday to properly mourn the one and celebrate the other.

Not exactly known for camaraderie the past few years, leaders of the two major political parties had to at least make nice while arranging for conflicting ceremonial events – a responsibility made all the more fraught by the imminent power shift coming to the Capitol.

The GOP leadership team of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., had wrapped up for the year and gone home when the death of President Ford pulled them all back to town for a state funeral tonight – one that not even President Bush, ensconced at his Crawford, Texas, ranch for the holidays, planned to attend.

And Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., juggled what were to be four long-planned days of events celebrating her milestone, which suddenly overlapped Washington’s unexpected four-day farewell to the 38th president.

The way events were taking shape, Washington might have looked to the rest of the world like a reception hall swept up after a morning wake then decorated for an afternoon wedding. The city’s final goodbye to Ford, scheduled to end Tuesday at noon, would be bumping up against a party in Baltimore’s Little Italy, where Albemarle Street was to be officially renamed Via Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi.

After spending hours Friday calculating the awkwardness of that juxtaposition, Pelosi’s staff announced the street-naming would be moved to Friday.

For days, it was unclear whether the outgoing Hastert or the incoming Pelosi was taking the lead in arranging the part that Congress would play in Washington’s send-off. In the end, Hastert took the lead but Pelosi’s blessing was implicit.

Ford, known as a consensus builder, might have appreciated the bipartisan spirit his passing brought, however briefly, to the usually vicious world of politics. Rep. Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, the new Democratic majority leader, was to stand with Hastert to greet Ford’s body when it arrives this evening at Andrews Air Force Base.

And former President Carter – who defeated Ford in 1976 – plans to deliver the eulogy in Grand Rapids, Mich., a final grace note in a friendship forged after Carter left office. Before his death, Ford asked his former rival to speak at his funeral, offering to do the same if Carter – 11 years younger – died first.

This evening’s state funeral will be in the Capitol Rotunda, where Ford’s casket will sit on the catafalque hastily built for Abraham Lincoln in 1865, a simple bier of rough pine boards.

Vice President Dick Cheney – who was Ford’s chief of staff – Hastert and Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Ted Stevens, of Alaska, will eulogize the former president tonight.

The White House announced that Bush will speak at a second service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday morning. Afterward, Ford’s body will be flown to Grand Rapids for burial at his presidential museum.