A Real Uniter

27 December 2006



Gerald Ford Dies at 93

Gerald Rudolph Ford was known as the “Accidental President.” He was never elected to either the vice presidency nor the presidency. His great political ambition was to become Speaker of the House. Fate intervened, however, and made him Richard Nixon’s successor. When he said, “our long national nightmare is over,” America found itself in better hands than it could appreciate at the time.

Mr. Ford was a self-effacing fellow from Michigan. The northern plains states are vastly underrated being located in what many call “the fly-over” part of America. However, folks from that part of the world tend to value quiet competence and decency a bit more than others, at least if one judges them by their actions. Mr. Ford was almost the quintessential representative of those virtues. Some said that he had played too much football at university without a helmet, but the fact was that Mr. Ford really was without the conniving nature of his predecessor.

Much of his administration was rule by veto as the Democratic Party tried to take every advantage of the Watergate/Vietnam mess to undercut the presidency. In economic policy, he was dealt the weakest hand an American president had seen since Herbert Hoover, and his response to soaring prices brought on by America’s scrapping of the Bretton Woods system and the oil shocks was lapel badges that read “Whip Inflation Now.”

Internationally, Vietnam wasn’t his war, but he kept the Marines at the embassy to get out as many South Vietnamese as he could. It was, only through the prism of history though not at the time, the right thing to do. He signed the Helsinki Accords, which many thought validated the Soviet Empire’s boundaries for nothing in return, but which provided a forum to bash the communists for their systemic violation of human rights until the Berlin Wall came down.

And then there is The Pardon. Many in the outrage of youth, or out of a sense of justice thwarted, voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 because Mr. Ford had pardoned Richard Nixon a month after Mr. Nixon’s resignation. In the 1990s sitcom “That 70s Show,” one of the characters gets to ask President Ford a question at a campaign stop. After being tongue-tied for an eternity, he finally asks, “How could you pardon Nixon?” Everyone wanted to ask that. With the unpopular stroke of a pen, Mr. Ford showed the wisdom of his Michigan roots.

Had he not pardoned Mr. Nixon, there would have been a trial and almost certainly a conviction on one or more charges. America had elected him twice, so what does it say about the nation if a criminal can win the presidency on more than one occasion? An entire generation came of age with a lost war and a failed presidency. That chapter had to end, and the pardon ended it with a clean break. There was talk of a crooked deal, a pardon in exchange for the presidency, but in the end, Mr. Ford did it because it was the only way to end what had to end. He did what was right and damned be the consequences to his re-election chances.

He will not be remembered in the same class as FDR or Washington because, frankly, he wasn’t quite the leader they were. He even joked in front of a joint session of Congress, “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.” However, when America was at its weakest in living memory, he protected it quietly and wisely. He let it heal by uniting its people. America will be very fortunate indeed if next president is as decent and wise as Mr. Ford was – a man who never sought the job and did it better than many who had.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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