The passing of President Gerald R. Ford may be the prelude to a watershed moment in American politics. For this weekend, as we close this year, the last, best hope for civil American discourse is remembered and buried. Americans, and for that matter citizens of the world, would do well to pause and examine those tumultuous months Gerald Ford occupied the Oval Office. Here was a man who sacrificed his own political career in the best interest of a nation. Here is a man who rose above politics to stand by his friend, Richard M. Nixon in his darkest hours.
A new generation of Americans has come into the American political landscape devoid of the civility and integrity Gerald Ford espoused. Tonight, as his body enters the Nation’s Capitol one last time, members of Congress would do well to recall a time when bipartisan discourse was civil. This week, as a nation remembers President Ford and his impact on history, let us ask ourselves, “What can I do?” Gerald Ford reluctantly left his beloved Congress to serve as Vice President. He reluctantly assumed the cloak of the Presidency in our nation’s most uncertain moment. He solidly lived behind his decision to grant pardon to an embattled, broken predecessor. Gerald Ford is the last of a dead breed. Honor, integrity and American pride are all but dead.
One cannot help but imagine Gerald Ford entering the Gates of Heaven being greeted by Mike Mansfield, Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan. One can easily imagine that as they greet each other, they express disdain on what we’ve become in America. What happened to honor? What happened to integrity? What happened to reasonable, unbridled civil discourse? What can we do, as individual Americans, to get us back to that point? Is it too late? Has technology and big business so overtaken our senses that we’ve forgotten the human condition? And to the party he so loved, one must ask, “when will we stop this nonsense?” When shall we return to the roots of the Republican cause? The party of Gerald R. Ford is not as it was and that, my friends, is an insult to the service Gerald R. Ford delivered to America.
Article comments
1 - Bliffle
One grows weary of all the misplaced praise for this minor political figure who all his life was just a party functionary, never taking a contrary stand, never promoting innovative legislation but always loyal to his leadership, which single quality lead him to the position of pardoning Nixon. Given his history of slavish obedience to his superiors that was predictable.
All the hoohah about National Nightmares and public anguish is drivel. Just an attempt by Nixons backers and handlers to spread the anxiety that they felt over being discovered as the curs that they were, and are to this day. They didn't have the moral compass or the guts to admit that they were crooks who were discovered. So they contrived a narrative to spread their personal anxieties out among the general public. It only worked among those predisposed to be deceived by political rhetoric, those demented souls who want to believe that politicians are gods that walk the earth.
33 years ago the great concern in the US public was still the Vietnam war. Here we had Nixon, who ascended to office in 1968 because he had a "secret plan" to end the war (after the arrogant bully LBJ withdrew rather than correct the failures of his own policies), and betrayed that promise, and got re-elected on that old bromide about switching horses in midstream. He had no plan, his secret was to fight The Long War Against Communism.
In the end, Fords personal loyalty to Nixon and deeply ingrained party obedience trumped national interest.
2 - Silas Kain
Loyalty counts for something in this world. We Americans are so damn willing to sell our very souls to the highest bidder. I stick to my guns. Gerald R. Ford is an American hero. No politician alive today comes even close to knowing what loyalty and patriotism are about. We are a nation on the decline and we're too damn blind to see it.
3 - Bliffle
I'm afraid that in Fords case that loyalty trumped patriotism. Of course he may simply have allowed himself to be seduced by the notion oft-expressed by partisans that loyalty to party IS national loyalty, no matter where that leads one.
4 - Silas Kain
You've become tainted, Bliffle, and nothing I can say will move you to see my point. We're a country of diverse opinipons and in that diversity we've become as fragmented as Iraq. America, wake up. In Iraq it's the Sunnis vs. Kurds vs. Shiites. In America it's the Dems dat have vs. the Religious Right a/k/a Republicans. Different religious affiliations, same God.
5 - Dave Nalle
Bliffle - not a big Nixon fan, apparently.
Dave
6 - Clavos
Judging from his comments, not a fan of anything much, apparently.
7 - Jet in Columbus
Thanks Silas. Ford comes from a time when congressmen were adversaries, not enemies like today.
Jet
8 - Bliffle
When our politicians become so non-adversarial and polite to each other that we can't tell the difference between them, then we are lost and our liberties have been obviated.
Just look at the obscene expressions of admiration that Senators exchange between themselves for an example of the Powdered and Perfumed Politics we will be subjected to when the nondescript monopoly of the demicans and republicrats becomes cemented into place. Presumably, in that future utopia they will be too polite to mention that Mark Foley is pursuing young pages because that would upset the delicate psyches of the childe voters in the USA. Isn't that really the root of the Ford coverup of Nixon?
Everyone join in the chorus: "the emperors new clothes are splendid!"
9 - Silas Kain
"Tis time, my friends, for a revolution.
10 - Clavos
Bliffle #5:
They're politicians. If they were good at doing constructive and/or productive things, they wouldn't have had to go into politics.
You expect too much of them.
11 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Silas,
Though I enjoyed your article, Silas, I have to say that IMHO, the Ford years will not be remembered by anything he did aside from pardoning Nixon.
The years he served in office will be remembered for the evil influences of Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller and the rise of George H.W. Bush.
Having said all this, Ford was a decent man and a civil one. But one wishes that he had the iron in him to act independently.
12 - Bliffle
Will all you folk who reverently recount Fords slim achievements with excessive praise be so inclined when Jimmy Carter dies, as die he must? After all, Carter can lay claim to effecting the Egypt/Israel peace agreement, which prevails to this day, many years later, and is a Good Thing that is hard to argue with.
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Bliffle,
When you die, I hope people don't crap all over your memory the way you are crapping all over Gerald Ford's.
Wait a week. Show a little class.
And don't get me started on that little shit, Carter... He's still alive. I don't have to be nice.