Built FORD Tough
Which to me means something akin to schizophrenically.
Pardoning Nixon, another schizo politico, was an inexcusable offense in my opinion. Tricky Dick was not, again IMO, the utterly evil villain so many o' my compatriots in Left Blogistan, quite legitimately in many respects, prefer to recall him as having been, Watergate and Cambodia (amongst others) not-with-standing. Still, the Rule of Law was obfuscated by President Ford, at a time when America needed to take back its honor and proclaim to both ourselves and the world at large, We are human. We make mistakes. We acknowledge this and will do whatever is in our power to rectify our errors so that our privilege and right to be the Light on a Hill and beacon of Liberty and Democracy shall not be dimmed nor diminished by a hubristic refusal to admit our humanity.
On the other hand . . .
Hhmmm... I'll get back to you on that one.
Tip o' my hat to Teh L4m3 for the impetus to post on this President's passing. namaste amigo!
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* Marty Kaplan has more on this point at the Huffington Post.
Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading IraqNote the embargoed interview bit, if you will. I think that such a requirement by the former president is also quite indicative of the kind of man he was: more intelligent than a lot of folk give him credit for being, yes, but conscientious to a fault in some regards*.
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006; Page A01
Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.
***
"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
Pardoning Nixon, another schizo politico, was an inexcusable offense in my opinion. Tricky Dick was not, again IMO, the utterly evil villain so many o' my compatriots in Left Blogistan, quite legitimately in many respects, prefer to recall him as having been, Watergate and Cambodia (amongst others) not-with-standing. Still, the Rule of Law was obfuscated by President Ford, at a time when America needed to take back its honor and proclaim to both ourselves and the world at large, We are human. We make mistakes. We acknowledge this and will do whatever is in our power to rectify our errors so that our privilege and right to be the Light on a Hill and beacon of Liberty and Democracy shall not be dimmed nor diminished by a hubristic refusal to admit our humanity.
On the other hand . . .
Hhmmm... I'll get back to you on that one.
Tip o' my hat to Teh L4m3 for the impetus to post on this President's passing. namaste amigo!
-----
* Marty Kaplan has more on this point at the Huffington Post.
I think Ford blocked America's knowledge of their complicity in so many criminal activities and for the most part, people here are not aware of how badly we have behaved. When he changed and blocked the Kennedy probe, that was the beginning of the end of America's self knowledge.
ReplyDeleteYeah, a lot of people go waaaaay to easy on him because he was nowhere near as evil as your Hoovers and your Nixons and your Reagans. But still...
ReplyDeletePS Michael I noticed you link to Austin Cline's forum. I used to go there years ago, but I hate the latest redesign...
It was unconscionable for Ford to remain silent while people died. He knew, as did most of the world, that invading Iraq was unnecessary and wrong, but he refused to criticize a fellow Republican. Profoundly misplaced loyalty. Don't even get me started on Woodward.
ReplyDeleteAs for pardoning Nixon, I think that set the stage for the corrupt Washington we have today, where everyone skates, and no crime is so bad that you can't retire into Elder Statesmanhood.
I think pardoning Tricky Dick was the right thing to do. Having him go to trial would have resulted in a show 10x bigger than OJ case, and kept the country from doing anything else for years.
ReplyDeleteAs for pardoning Nixon setting the stage for corrupt Washington today - that started long before Ford pardoned Nixon. Remember Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Speech as he left office in 1961? As long as their have been governments, their have been lobbyists and profiteers to corrupt them.