A few words on Gerald Ford...
Now, as another year passes into something new, we find ourselves watching another State Funeral from our own distances. Earlier this week Gerald Ford died at his home in California. His wife and partner in one of the great American marriages of history broke the news. I feel compelled to type a few words up as the news channels air the lengthy procession towards Grand Rapids, Michigan via Washington DC.
President Ford was one of the Good Ones. That is a cliché used heavy this week but it deserves every single repeat. He was handed by destiny one of the three toughest American Executive jobs of the last 100 years. In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt took the office amidst the Great Depression and had to walk on the international coals that were quickly starting to take flame into what became World War Two. On a September day just over 5 years ago a brutal attack saw much of the country and the world rally behind George W. Bush in what was both a present tragedy and a daunting future. Of those two men, one would succeed into legend and the other fumble the football of history like Leon Lett near the end zone. Gerald Ford took on the offices of both Vice President and President upon the embarrassing resignations of others at a time of great national heartache caused by a war in Vietnam and the paranoiac policies of Nixon that culminated in the Watergate fiasco.
Gerald Ford grew up out of a tough, abusive childhood, made it to the University of Michigan where he played center for two undefeated national champion football teams, and into the Pacific Theater of World War Two in the Navy. Ford saw action on Wake Island, the Philipines, and nearly died during a typhoon. Back from the war he married Elizabeth Bloomer Warren, Betty, and won the first of 13 terms as Representative from Michigan. While in Congress Ford served on the Warren Commission that turned in shaky conclusions on the murder of President Kennedy. He and LBJ disagreed on the Vietnam War and history has shown the victor in this tragic debate. His biggest goal in Congress was to be Speaker of the House but it was never to be.
In 1973 Spiro Agnew, a man with all the integrity of Baltimore’s filthiest winos, resigned as Vice President. Nixon picked the amiable Ford who was easily confirmed by his Colleagues on the Hill. Less than a year later Nixon took his creepy uncle routine out of the White House and Jerry Ford, who had not run for any Executive position, was the President of the United States. Left behind was one big grocery bag of manure for Ford to deal with. He saw the final withdraw of Americans from Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. He pardoned Nixon to spare the nation any further grief at the expense of whatever brief entertainment that Nixon’s tar and feathering may have provided and leave a foundation of respect and dignity to redeem the office of President. He also pardoned the draft dodgers who were not as skilled in that trade as Dick Cheney. The country was also deep in another battle with economic recession. Ford was like Jerry Quarry thrown into a ring with Joe Frazier, Muhammed Ali, and George Foreman all at once. A strong, unadorned image for the people to respect was the most needed commodity of the moment, and Gerald Ford provided just that if little else.
Though only President for a bit over two years Ford was on the scary end of two separate pistols in the hands of two crazy women. In Sept ‘75 Squeaky Fromme, a Charlie Manson acolyte, got within feet of Ford but was subdued by a Secret Service agent before being able to kill. It would turn out that the gun had not been operated in a proper manner and would not have fired anyway but Miss Squeaky remains where she belongs, in prison. A month later Sara Jane Moore tried her hand at assassination and was foiled by a bystander. In later interviews Ford would chuckle at the incidents, a response that lent ultimate believability to his statement that he remained unafraid to go out in public which he felt he must as President.
In 1976 Ford lost a bid for reelection in his own right to Jimmy Carter. Later, the two would become good friends. Ford was good for things like that. He was a uniter and not a divider in reality and not in rhetoric. His efforts towards healing a badly mangled country were of historic proportions even if he was little more than a solid respectable figure walking forth from the nasty turbulence of LBJ and Nixon. In his later years Ford would remain in his agreeable suit of average, levelheaded American. During a 1999 appearance on the Larry King Show he was asked about abortion and said, quite bluntly, that he and Betty are pro-choice and he doesn’t feel that it is a subject that belongs anywhere in the political sphere. In a 2004 interview he expressed his dislike for President Bush’s Iraq War policy. If ever there was a proper time for a ghost to return to the White House and bug a sitting President it would be the thoughtful Ford and now.
For many there are two iconic facets to the Gerald Ford biography. First would have to be his quote on the end of “our long national nightmare” and second are several enduring endearing pieces of comedy. Chevy Chase played Ford as a madly bumbling klutz on SNL (the two would become tennis playing buddies), another SNL bit with Dana Carvey playing Tom Brokaw announcing various horrific deaths for Ford (overdose of crack cocaine, eaten by wolves, chopped into little bits by the propeller of a commuter plane), and a quick spot on the Simpsons (he asked Homer to stop by for football, nachos, and beer after George Bush Sr. was run out of Springfield). When news hit of Ford’s death it was those four things that came into my mind first. I didn’t feel bad about the last three as Ford never seemed like the kind of guy who would get torn out of shape at being the subject of a joke. He was comfortable with himself, his marriage, and his importance in history. For those reasons Gerald Ford was truly one of the Good Ones. In the end he was not eaten by wolves but the legacy left behind will stand up as a delicious piece of biography.
