Gerald Ford, RIP If Only he beat Carter

I assure you, if Ford had beat Carter -- this country would look different today. That hostage crisis would have gone down differently. No Republican would have allowed America to get its ass handed to them so badly.
If a Republican was in the White House, we would have stormed that embassy within 48 hours. We might still be at war with Iran 27 years later or perhaps not.

Perhaps Ford would not have thrown our ally, the Shah, to the wolves. Would not have pushed him out as Carter did, with both hands. Perhaps we would have backed up an old friend.

Perhaps we would not have have handed Panama the canal. An enormous achievement made possible by the ingenuity, blood, sweat, and lives of Americans.

Perhaps we would not have had 21% interest rates (at that time.)

Whatever. Ford is dead. I liked him. A lot. A fine man whose only crime was to pardon a much maligned President. Guilty of crimes which go unnoticed today by the party of personal destruction. I am proud to say that in the first blossom of political consciousness, I attended at GERALD FORD FOR PRESIDENT  rally at the Nassau Coliseum in Hempstead, NY in 1976. My first such event and was interviewed but the network news asking me why I was supporting Ford. I clearly remember saying "because Carter is a dark horse. You don't know what you are going to get." The Carter Presidency, another gift from the mainstream media.

Gerald R. Ford, 38th US President Dies at 93 years old here.

Ford became the 38th president on Aug. 9, 1974, immediately after Nixon's resignation under threat of impeachment. When Ford took office, he said: ``I assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.''         

``With his quiet integrity, common sense, and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the presidency,'' U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement.         

Ford projected calm during a period of high inflation, looming energy shortages and a waning war in Southeast Asia. Ford, a Republican, lost his bid to win a full term in 1976 to Democrat Jimmy Carter. On Inauguration Day, Carter began his speech: ``For myself and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.''         

Comments

[Rick Richman]

From Time Magazine, January 14, 1980: “[John] Connally advocated setting a deadline for release of the hostages and called for "disruptions" of Iran's oil production if it was not met.”

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921770-1,00.html

[pastorius]

That's funny that he is photographed here playing football without a helmet. Among his personal quirks were that he was clumsy. During his President he tripped and fell down a number of times, including, as I recall, on the airport tarmac, and on the ski slopes.

Political cartoonists took to drawing him with a football-shaped head as a way of satirizing this quality. I almost called my "obit" on him, "Old Helmet-head Has Passed Away," but then realized no one would understand what the hell I was talking about.

[Shy Guy]

He also bumped his head on the doorway of the Marine 1 helicopter after waving and turning around to go in.

It was joked that he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.

But for all the jokes, he was by far a decent person and president. RIP.

[Gary]

He was the first president I was able to vote for. *sighs* If Only...

[Jerusalem-Geoff]

RIP.

However, thank God that he didn't beat Carter. The American electorate would have been most unlikely to elect another Republican president after 12 years of Republicans and we may never have gotten the greatest American president of all, Ronald Reagan RIP.

[Carl in Jerusalem]

Pamela,

You just showed how young you are (were you over 10 years old in 1976? :-).

Ford never had a shot in hell of beating Carter or anyone else the Dhimmicrats ran against him. Even Splash would have won in 1976.

Ford became President because both Nixon and Agnew were forced to resign due to scandals. The country was convinced that Republicans were crooks. Then Ford compounded his problems by pardoning Nixon immediately, while the country still wanted blood.

And then - as someone above hinted - he became an object for ridicule. They said he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. The last straw was a Saturday Night Live skit of the Presidential debates with Chevy Chase playing Ford. Chase fell over a lectern and broke a leg. For real.

If Ford had let the Watergate investigation run itself out, people would evntually have tired of it and two and a quarter years later, he might have had a shot at re-election. But that's not the course he chose. And the commenter who said that Ford's loss may have brought us Reagan and Bush I may be right.

[ckreiz]

Carl's right- Ford become the object of ridicule by the MSM and leftists everywhere. But his loss to Jimmy in 76 redeemed him; he became tolerable because he was a Republican who lost. I don't remember reading kind things in 1975-76. His debate 'error' ("Poland is a free country...") was jumped on as sheer idiocy. Today, he's properly lauded by the MSM as a good man, kind, a gentleman.

[Ripper]

Ford was no friend of Israel as President and was a guy who wore a W.I.N. button (Whip Inflation Now). I am sorry he is gone but he was a typical Rockefeller/Pataki type of Republican - you know "Let's all play nice."

[Ripper]

Also the idea that Ford would have been a tiger in foreign and defense policy is a joke. Congress would never have allowed him to do that just as they sold South Vietnam down the toilet. Ford refused (on the advice of Henry Kissinger) to meet Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the White House because he did not want to offend our "friend" Leonid Brezhnev! Ford was a James Baker/Brent Scowcroft type of "Realist" Republican. However he did the right thing by pardoning Nixon.

[Ripper]

The joke about Ford and gum was sanitized from LBJ's original "He cannot fa_t and chew gum at the same time." LBJ was a classy guy! /not

[Pamela Geller]

Yes, Reagan. Reagan. Reagan.

[Constitution]

Other things to remember about Gerry Ford:

1) He pocket vetoed the only viable health care legislation Congress has ever passed

2) He prevented the American people from bringing Richard Nixon to Justice

3) He directly autrhorized and anabled the massacre of 200,000 Timorese people.

[Tom at BizzyBlog]

I think everyone's missing a point about Ford v. Carter.

Ford would not have abandoned the Shah in Iran as Carter did, and would have seen Khomeni for the threat that he was. It's very likely the Shah would have remained in power, or if he didn't, that Iran would not have turned into an Islamofascist state. Even if Khomeni had gotten in, he would probably not have allowed the embassy hostage taking or would have moved to solve it quickly, given Ford's instinctive military response in the Mayaguez incident in 1975.

Ford, I'm pretty sure, would not have been up for re-election in 1980, and RR could still have strode in and done his thing.

[val21]

"Perhaps we would not have have handed Panama the canal."

Ahem... Ford started the negotiations with Panama about turning over the canal, Carter just finished them.

-->Right-wing nuts once again editing history to suit their current snarky complaints about the world.

[elemgee]

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Ford was his post-presidency work with Jimmy Carter. Time will tell whether the work that Bill Clinton has done with George H.W. Bush will stand up over time. I find it difficult to imagine George W. Bush working with any of his predecessors considering how little he has valued their perspective up to now (including his father).

Yes, Gerald Ford is distinguished by being the President who was handed Nixon's bag of crap and I think that under those circumstances, he did do what was best for the country and it turned out as well as can be expected.

It is ironic and humorous that so many posts on this topic have pointed out how mean the jokes were about Ford. He did trip on camera often and that was a gift to comedians. Taken in contrast to the lies and slander that pose as 'humor' on sites like this and other ideologically myopic sites, I wonder if there is anyone on the 'right' who has a sense of humor now that Ford has passed.

[elemgee]

In addition to the facts and pseudo-facts presented above regarding the Panama Canal, there are a couple of things that have been overlooked.

1) The Panama Canal is in ... well ... Panama, not the United States. (Don't try to say the "canal zone" is not Panama... that's like saying the U.N. is not in New York. Technically correct, but absolutely useless information)

2) The horrible effects of returning the canal did not come to pass. Everything is still running as it has. I've been through the canal dozens of times before and after the handover... no difference.

Don't you think it's time to let that one go?

[tazzerman2000]

Val21, I think you better check your facts, the negotations related to the actual treaty that led to the surrender of the Panama Canal where started in Feb of 1977 under DHIMMI CARTER and were completed by August 10 , not under Gerald Ford.

The actual lead up to the treaty negotiations were started in 1974 by Kissinger and really, an argument can be made that the original basis of the treaty was actually started in 1903.

[Ripper]

Ford was the best President of the 1970's - but that is not setting the bar too high! He was the type of Republican/Conservative (think George Will, Bob Michel, Dennis Hastert, George Pataki, Tucker Carlson, G.H.W. Bush), who was happy with minority status.

[Underzog]

Debbie Schlussel gives the most realistic account of the first President that I ever voted for:
December 27, 2006
Keepin' it Real: The Gerald R. Ford Scorecard--Portrait of a VERY Average (or Below) Prez

By Debbie Schlussel
In the rush to exalt former President Gerald R. Ford on the occasion of his death, let's keep it real. He was an okay President. An average President, at best.
Here's the DebbieSchlussel.com scorecard for President Ford:
BEST MOVES
* Pardoning President Nixon: Yes, there was never any proof that Nixon knew about the burglary at Watergate. Even liberal former ABC News White House correspondent Sam Donaldson says that. He said he never saw any evidence that Nixon committed a crime. And it's well known that the Watergate scandal was cooked up by those in Congress--especially the Senate (Senator Sam Ervin, Jr.)--who were upset that President Nixon actually sequester and hold funds meant for a wasteful boondoggle project. The nerve of him. Did we really need to show the world that we wanted to hang our own while we were already hanging ourselves in Vietnam after giving up without a full-fledged fight? Contrary to popular belief, this pardon is NOT what cost Ford the Presidency.

* Staying Alive: Survived two assassination attempts.

WORST MOVES
* Never Actually Winning Election to the White House: And losing to a peanut farmer from Georgia because Ford denied that there was "Soviet domination of Eastern Europe." Hello . . . ?

* Squeezing Israel throughout his Presidency, at a time when Israel was the only non-Soviet Allied nation in the Mid-East:
As detailed by our friend, Michael Freund, in the Jerusalem Post, Ford's policy on Israel was so pan-Islamist that even Jimmy Carter scolded him in the Presidential debate (my, how times have changed):
America stepped in and sought to impose a solution, bringing heavy pressure to bear on Israel to make concessions to the Egyptian aggressors who had launched the previous conflict.
In 1975, U.S. president Gerald Ford threatened a "reassessment" of U.S.-Israel relations, and there was even talk of possible sanctions against the Jewish state.
In the October 6, 1976, U.S. presidential debate Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter blasted the heavy-handed tactics Ford and Kissinger had used, saying, "We almost brought Israel to its knees after the Yom Kippur War by the so-called reassessment of our relationship to Israel. We in effect tried to make Israel the scapegoat for the problems in the Middle East.
"And this weakened our relationship with Israel a great deal and put a cloud on the total commitment that our people feel toward the Israelis."

* Using his position as a former Republican (RINO) President to push continued affirmative action/reverse racism:
In an August 1999 New York Times op-ed (I wrote this column on it), President Ford wrote a ridiculous defense of affirmative action admissions at both his and my alma mater, the University of Michigan. He said that because, when he played football at Michigan (in the 1930s!!!!), other schools wouldn't play Michigan (because it had Black players on the team), that we now, in the 21st Century need to continue affirmative action. Huh?
First of all, there isn't affirmative action in football--especially today, when talent is king and more than 75% of all college football players are Black. Secondly, what does football have to do with college admissions. And last, but not least, how does a President--who never got to the White House on the merits of his own candidacy--tell us that we shan't be judged on merit, because of something that happened in the 1930s?

This was his last major act in public life--to stand for continued reverse racism in America. Not something to be proud of.

For all of these reasons, President Ford will always be remembered as an average President. He did not do anything outstanding. He did not do anything great. And he paved the way for one of the worst Presidents ever, Jimmy Carter.

But, at least, he served his country well, both in the military and as an elected public servant. And for that, he will always be appreciated.

Gerald R. Ford, Rest in Peace.

"There's no need to fear; Underzog is here!"

[lonbud]

Apparently nostalgia is going to be a theme here in Atlasworld for some time to come...

All this pining for Reagan and what-might-have-beens is more than a little bit nauseating, given where the so-called leaders from the Republican cabal have left us today.

If Ford had possessed any cojones and refused to pardon Nixon, allowed him to be tried as a citizen for the crimes he directed as President, we'd be living in a far freer, stronger, more effective land than we do today.

Now, Nancy Pelosi and the Dummycraps seem poised to commit the same error by refusing to allow impeachment hearings for a criminal even worse than Nixon was.

The United States of America -- it was a good idea.