In an editorial, the New York Times wasn’t taking any chances that people might miss the distinction between the 45th president and the 41st:

“Yet, at the moment of his passing, it is difficult not to take note of the profound differences between the 41st president of the United States and the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump. Beyond a desire to be president — Mr. Bush was more competitive and ambitious than his self-effacing personality sometimes suggested — there is almost nothing in common: the one gracious and modest, the other rude and vain; the one prudent, the other brash; the one steady, the other unmoored.”

While the Obamas where careful in their public statement on Bush’s death not to invoke Trump, other Democrats made clear allusions to the current president in their laments for Bush. “His yearning for a kinder and gentler nation seems more needed now than when he first called for it,” tweeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “President Bush showed the compassion, decency and good humor that is often lacking in our politics today,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a statement.

Suffice to say such sentiments would not have been expressed were Barack Obama still president.