Last week’s coverage of President Ford and today’s memorial service provide us with the Incredibly Under-Rated, Best President, Healer, Uniter, Saver, Decent Everyman Gerald Ford Official MSM and the Political Establishment Image Compendium:
Thank goodness for President George H.W. Bush’s comments today,without whom we never would have known that President Ford was “a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.”
Interestingly, I don’t quite remember the “Clemency for Draft Dodgers” painting, or the “Whip Inflation Now! Buttons” painting or the “I Didn’t Want My Real Friend to Have the Stigma of a Criminal Conviction So I Pardoned Him” painting.
As we all are presented with the President Ford the Establishment would like consecrated, Christopher Hitchens offers a more complete and honest look at the Ford years with his piece, “Our Short National Nightmare.” It is well worth reading as the Establishment Media and both political machines try desperately to paint Ford as the preferred (over Reagan) “harmless” sort of Republican.
Related Post:
Yes, I Know President Ford Has Died
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t help but think that the way the MSM is talking up past Republican presidents is due to them thinking “At least he’s not like Bush”. I couldn’t believe the way liberals were even praising Reagan (though some brought up past gripes they had with him), and it did have that tone: “He was better than Bush”. IMO it’s revisionist history in this sense. Both Ford and Reagan did things that were very controversial to the Left, and they scorched both of them. Now they want to look back fondly and say, “Aw gee, they were right. They were good presidents.” What I wish they’d do is realize that no matter who is president, even Bush, when they provide real leadership (in the present tense), their decisions are almost always controversial, and hard to understand. The natural reaction of many is to get upset, angry, enraged. I wish they’d realize that we wouldn’t have this see-saw reaction to our presidents if instead of giving in to our instincts so much when it comes to matters we don’t understand, that we instead pause and consider that maybe we don’t understand the implications of NOT doing what our president wants to do, and put a little more trust in him (or her, someday). I wish that we would remember that our instincts didn’t serve us so well when these dead presidents were alive and in office, and consider that these same instincts are not serving us so well now.
Another way of looking at it is, consider what would’ve happened if Clinton had really pulled out all the stops in going after bin Laden when he was in office, and Bush had merely continued his policies? This would’ve been very controversial. Clinton would’ve suffered probably worse popularity ratings than Bush, but in hindsight it would’ve been the right thing to do.
When Ford ran against Carter he was so liberal he let Jimmy get to the right of him. That is how he lost the election and sent this country into the tail-spin that was the late 70’s! He appointed one of the most liberal members of the Supreme Court and commented that he was very disappointed in Bush 41 for being anti-abortion. Thank God that The Gipper came along when he did! We need another Ronald Wilson Reagan now…sigh…but they only come along once in a lifetime I fear!
Look at it this way: Ford begat Reagan. Now if only someone would/could pick up the torch from The Gipper and run with the damn thing.
While Gerald Ford was certainly a decent man, I have a different take on his legacy. Many are praising his decision to pardon Richard Nixon, and in some respects it was a good thing. But if there is one single act that led the voters of this country to elect the utterly feckless jimmy carter (i refuse to capitalize his name), it was the pardon of Nixon. Had Ford not pardoned Nixon, he may have won the 1976 Presidential election. And if carter had not been elected, the current regime in iran may have died shortly after it took power, or may never have even been born. Ford might have supported the Shah instead of stabbing him in the back as carter did. And even if khomeini still got into power in iran, would Ford have allowed the mullahs to take our embassy and kidnap our diplomats without retaliation? I would hope NOT. Considering the damage that the iranian regime has done to our interests over the years, there are few things more damaging than their mere presence on the world stage. And Ford’s pardon of Nixon and the subsequent election of carter are the primary reasons that the ayatollahs came to power in the first place.
So I hope Mr Ford rests in peace, but you’ll have to pardon ME if I don’t go along with the conventional wisdom that pardoning Nixon was such an overwhelmingly smart and productive thing to do. Because it led us to jimmy carter: the worst President and the absolute worst EX-President of our times.
Funny! Those picures are funny!
Does Hitchens ever give a positive obituary? He was not to keen on Reagan either.Why have the Right embraced Hitchens? He doesn’t seem trustworthy.
To PETERFNY:
Like I was saying, it was US who made the decision to elect Carter. Ford didn’t make that decision for us. I think people need to wake up and look at their own perceptions of our leaders. Just because we’ve reacted the way we did doesn’t mean we should blame the leaders who “caused us” to react that way. We ought to look in the mirror instead.
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