In repose

Alexander Cockburn, writing in his column in the 28 June 2004 Nation magazine:

The ceremonial schedule for Reagan's corpse the week after his death had it "lying in repose" for several days. What else was it supposed to be doing?

[...]

Reagan was "in repose" much of his second term, his day easing forward through a forgiving schedule of morning nap, afternoon snooze, TV supper and early bed. He couldn't recall the names of many of his aides, even of his dog. Stories occasionaly swirled around Washington that his aides pondered whether to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment. I saw him at the Republican convention in New Orleans in August of 1988, where he sat in his presidential box entirely immobile, with the kind of somber passivity one associates with the shrouded figure in some newly opened Egyptian tomb before oxygen commences its mission of decay...

[Cockburn's Counterpunch deserves a close look]