First Partner

   One measure of a person's importance in society is funeral coverage. By that measure, Barbara Bush was a very important person, since all major broadcast and cable television networks carried the event in her honor.
   She was the wife -- life partner is perhaps a better term -- of the 41st president of the United States and the mother of the 43rd president, as well as the mother of a governor of Florida.
   Yet for all her experiences at the highest levels of government and of society, she never lost her ability to deal with people on a basic, human, every day level.
   Only one other woman can be listed as wife and mother of two president -- Abigail Adams, wife to the second president and mother of the sixth president. However, she died before her son became president. This leaves Barbara Bush as the only woman in American history to see her husband and a son serve as president.
   A basic tenet of journalism is to beware of absolutes. In this case, Barbara Pierce Bush was absolutely deserving of full news media coverage as her life ended at the age of 93, which included more than 70 years of marriage to the same man.