Bloodless Coup

He was a seemingly good and decent guy at a moment in American history when a good and decent guy was desperately needed. He was moderate and bipartisan and well-spoken and smart and reasonably honest and dedicated and many other things that congresscritters (not to mention presidential candidates) seem not to be these days.

Compared to the Current Occupant, he was a giant, though admittedly more for his congressional career than his presidential one.

I get all that - but it seems a combination of matters that aren't especially relevant to being a successful president, and massive celebration of a man for crossing over an incredibly low bar re: performance and expectations. I mean it's like we are having a national holiday to note that one of our former presidents was NICE.

True, he's better than the current occupant of the White House on most any measure - but that's not saying much (to put it rather mildly).

OK, let me see if I can be really clear about this:

He did one important thing. That thing ruined his political career (a career in which he aspired to be Speaker, not President, btw). In retrospect, in the full light of history, it was an exceedingly good thing to have done.

I mean, Nixon damn near wrecked the presidency. It was a scary time, a time in which it briefly seemed possible that the American WayTM would fall apart. Ford more or less singlehandedly put things back together, at considerable personal cost.

That's a level of service to one's country that most presidents can't muster.

I'm fully on board with jacflash's position here: Ford's pardon of Nixon was (in hindsite) exactly what was needed for the country, and it wrecked Ford's chances for re-election. If for no other reason, he should be honored for making that tough decision (that he knew would likely have the effect it did).

Moreover, Ford handled the office with class and dignity. Moreso than almost any other modern President. That's worth something.

Well I'm not nearly as sure as you two are about the Nixon pardon being the right thing. It seems to me that it enabled a situation in which we could forget the enormous dangers of a powerful, unaccountable White House, and allow the appointment of people like Elliott Abrams to high office, no matter their past crimes.

But that's not a matter (the pardon) I've given much thought to lately.

Better that than "enabling" a trial and national malaise that might have continued well into the 1980s.

National malaise didn't continue well into the 1980s? ;)

No, on the contrary. It was Morning in AmericaTM.

No, the 1984 campaign add was "It's Morning again in America".

The "malaise" thing was overrated. I was there (though young; as was jacflash), and I don't remember any nationalistic malaise (yeah, yeah, yeah: small sample size). Reagan won by getting everyone to believe there was malaise, and that he ended it. I'm willing to argue there is more malaise now (Iraq, Bin Laden still MIA, Nork nuke tests, real estate bubble, middle class wages, percent of national income to top 1%, etc.) than there ever was in the 70s or 80s.

I dunno, 1979-1980 seemed pretty malaise-y to me. Inflation, international failure, bad music, killer rabbits, shitty cars... it was definitely one of the lower points in US history, and the domestic mood definitely brightened after a couple of years of the Reagan/Stockman administration.

This is getting into a rather unproductive area (partially my fault for taking us there) b/c it implies that it was Reagan that boosted the country out of a post-Nixon resignation malaise, but (unsurprisingly) Ford was reasonably well-liked when he left office (I'm not sure the exact #, but I think he was polling in the mid-high 50's when he departed the White House), and Carter was pretty well liked during his first 2 years - his polling then was better than Reagan's during Reagan's first 2 years, and of course better than Reagan's 3rd year which was abysmal (in terms of popularity and right track/wrong track).

For better or worse Ford's act (and other activities in the mid-70s) seems to have actually gotten the country out of the malaise (to a degree) and perhaps the other House cleaning of the late mid-70's helped to seemingly push things in the right direction.

But then things collapsed again in '79 (the Hostage Crisis, the second gas shock, etc.) and that malaise didn't really end until 1984. So it really was morning in American "again" that year.

I've always thought of it as Reagan boosting the country out of a Carter's-bungled-management malaise. The one thing that was really shocking at the time -- more than the hostages, more than the military, more than the disco, more than post-Watergate whateverness -- was the inflation. America hasn't seen anything remotely like it since. (In part, I suspect, because our govt is fudging the statistics, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Well, sure - Reagan did lead the country out of a post-Carter malaise, eventually - though people tend to forget that Reagan was really only popular for about 3 years (1984-1986) and that he started off as a peculiarly unpopular president and didn't leave office very highly thought of.

My point was just that Ford left office reasonably popular (or at least not unpopular), and there was a clear enthusiasm for Carter (at least the polls showed that) for the first year or year and a half of his presidency (his numbers then were higher than those Reagan would steadily have - so not counting the post-shooting numbers - pre-'84). So Reagan might have led the country out of a malaise - but it wasn't the Nixon and Watergate one. The country's spirits had already risen from that - though yeah, sure, they soon dived down again.

Though I should also point out that our perceptions of all this now are likely obscured by the Reagan's a demi-god cult that has grown over time. As with Kennedy, his fans have assiduously wildly inflated perceptions of how he was actually viewed as president. Some people might say that Carter's been the most successful ex-president, but Reagan and JFK have surely had the most successful post-presidency fan clubs.

Are the flags EVER going to return to full staff?

Having said that, this morning another good thing Gerald Ford did occurred to me. He appointed Carla Hills to head HUD. Why is this noteworthy (aside from having a competent person running HUD, something not all of Mr. Ford's Republican successors have had)? B/c it began the on-going string of US presidents having women in their cabinets (as head of executive departments). That might not seem unusual now, but before Ford, if I remember correctly, only two presidents had a woman (and yes, just the one) in their cabinet. FDR broke the gender barrier first by naming Frances Perkins Secretary of Labor. But after her there would only be one female cabinet member again before Ford (Oveta Culp Hobby during President Eisenhower's administration). Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were all content to leave the glass ceilig in place.

So, for whatever it's worth, there's something else that set Gerald Ford apart.