Gerald Ford
I must admit, a vast majority of my memories of the Ford Administration are based on Chevy Chase and Saturday Night Live. After all, I was about the Junion Logicians age. Just old enough to know that what was going on (Watergate, VietNam etc) was important - young enough to not really care! That is one reason why I had not said anything on the subject...until now.
Peggy Noonan had a fairly balanced look back at the Gerald Ford the President and why, in spite of his not being elected, he was the right thing for the country at the time.
"There are three points about Ford that I'm not sure can ever be sufficiently appreciated.
The first is that when he pardoned Richard Nixon, he threw himself on a grenade to protect the country from shame, from going too far. It was an act of deep political courage, and it was shocking. Almost everyone in the country hated it, including me. But Ford was right. Richard Nixon had been ruined, forced to resign, run out of town on a rail. There was nothing to be gained--nothing--by his being broken on the dock. What was then the new left would never forgive Ford. They should thank him on their knees that he deprived history of proof that what they called their idealism was not untinged by sadism.
Second, Ford's personal dignity--his plain Midwestern rectitude, his old-style, pipe-smoking American normality, and his characterological absence of bile, spite and malice--helped the nation over and through the great tearing of the fabric that was Watergate. This is often referred to, and yet it is hard to communicate what a relief it was. Whether right or wrong, hopeless or wise, a normal man was in charge. This was a balm, a real gift to the country.
Third, he did not understand, and so was undone by, the rise of the modern conservative movement. He did not understand the prairie fire signaled by the California tax revolt, and did not see it roaring east. He did not fully understand how offended the American public was by endless government spending and expanding federal power. He did not see the growing estrangement between Republicans on the ground and a leadership they saw as tax collectors for the welfare state. He did not fully appreciate the public desire for a fresher, more candid attitude toward the Soviet Union, and communism in general. He was not at all alive to what would prove to be deep national qualms about abortion. He was not aware of its ability to alarm, to waken the sleepy Evangelicals of the South and the urban ethnics of the North, who'd previously been content to go with the Democratic flow. Ford was oblivious to this. He thought in his own stolid way that abortion was pretty much an extension of the new feminist movement, which he supported. How could a gallant fella not? "
A fascinating read and a remarkable tribute to a much maligned and misunderstood President.
Peggy Noonan had a fairly balanced look back at the Gerald Ford the President and why, in spite of his not being elected, he was the right thing for the country at the time.
"There are three points about Ford that I'm not sure can ever be sufficiently appreciated.
The first is that when he pardoned Richard Nixon, he threw himself on a grenade to protect the country from shame, from going too far. It was an act of deep political courage, and it was shocking. Almost everyone in the country hated it, including me. But Ford was right. Richard Nixon had been ruined, forced to resign, run out of town on a rail. There was nothing to be gained--nothing--by his being broken on the dock. What was then the new left would never forgive Ford. They should thank him on their knees that he deprived history of proof that what they called their idealism was not untinged by sadism.
Second, Ford's personal dignity--his plain Midwestern rectitude, his old-style, pipe-smoking American normality, and his characterological absence of bile, spite and malice--helped the nation over and through the great tearing of the fabric that was Watergate. This is often referred to, and yet it is hard to communicate what a relief it was. Whether right or wrong, hopeless or wise, a normal man was in charge. This was a balm, a real gift to the country.
Third, he did not understand, and so was undone by, the rise of the modern conservative movement. He did not understand the prairie fire signaled by the California tax revolt, and did not see it roaring east. He did not fully understand how offended the American public was by endless government spending and expanding federal power. He did not see the growing estrangement between Republicans on the ground and a leadership they saw as tax collectors for the welfare state. He did not fully appreciate the public desire for a fresher, more candid attitude toward the Soviet Union, and communism in general. He was not at all alive to what would prove to be deep national qualms about abortion. He was not aware of its ability to alarm, to waken the sleepy Evangelicals of the South and the urban ethnics of the North, who'd previously been content to go with the Democratic flow. Ford was oblivious to this. He thought in his own stolid way that abortion was pretty much an extension of the new feminist movement, which he supported. How could a gallant fella not? "
A fascinating read and a remarkable tribute to a much maligned and misunderstood President.
posted by The Lady Logician at
7:57 PM
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