What was the purpose of the ear lobe story?
There are thousands of stories that could have been told.
And it is going to go down in history that they talked about his ear lobe fetish at his funeral...
Who knows. Maybe that sort of affection is something he remembers fondly from childhood.
He was a jerk by saying what he did about the "mandate" but he is still a boy who lost his daddy.
It was a strange story to tell though.