Thank You, President Ford

On the morning after the presidential election in 1968 I watched Richard Nixon and his family appear at a press conference. I distinctly recall the feeling of hope that I felt at that moment. I had worked hard with the Young Republicans at the University of Utah supporting the Nixon campaign, not that the electoral votes for Utah were ever in doubt.

That was the first time that a presidential election meant something significant to me. As a less than politically astute 12-year old, my only contribution to the election of 1960 was to join friends in chanting, “Nixon, Nixon, he’s our man, Kennedy belongs in the garbage can.” As a native of Arizona and a high school student in Phoenix, I helped with mailers and yard signs in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964. By 1968, the violent struggle for civil rights and the violent resistance to the war in Vietnam had changed everything.

Opposition to the war in Vietnam had spilled into the streets and had gotten as ugly as the civil rights riots from 1964 to 1968, as witnessed in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1968. Lyndon Johnson had announced in March that he would not seek reelection and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, became the Democratic standard bearer in Chicago. All that mattered to me and millions of other Americans was that Johnson’s wartime legacy would come to an end. Peace in America was becoming as important as peace in Vietnam. Humphrey was stained by his role in the Johnson administration and could not get enough distance between himself and Vietnam and the street violence of the prior four years. When Nixon won, I was jubilant.

Little did we know that in less than four years Richard Nixon would set upon a path that would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis for the United States. On that crooked path Nixon made the cover-up of the conspiracy surrounding the Watergate break-in the primary legacy of his administration. By 1974, the country was as ready to get rid of Nixon as it had been to rid itself of Johnson. Standing beside Nixon at the time was his vice president, Gerald R. Ford, newly appointed following the disgraceful resignation of Spiro Agnew in December 1973.

On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned the presidency and Gerald Ford became the 38th President of the United States – the only person never elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. While most of us were too Watergate weary to feel anything approaching jubilant, there was once again a sense of hope for the future.

President Ford died yesterday. In the coming days we will hear a lot spoken about his legacy and the words that we’re most likely to hear will be about a healing in America, a restoration of trust, and a renewal of confidence, faith and integrity in the White House. In his inaugural address, he said some things that need repeating in this political day and age, when our “bond” is once again strained at home and abroad:

"I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government, but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad.

"In all my public and private acts as your president, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy at hand.

"Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.”

Above all else, President Ford was a good, decent, honest man who vowed to end the “imperial presidency” and did so. One of the first pictures we saw of this former MVP football player from Michigan was of him making his own breakfast. There are no pictures of Nixon or Johnson in the kitchen. Apparently, they couldn’t stand the heat there, so they got out.

Ford’s approval rating jumped to over 70%. Then he did something in keeping with his nature – he pardoned Richard Nixon. Four months after that decision, his approval rating plummeted to 36%. His presidency, like those of his two predecessors, was under a siege of its own making. Agree with it or not, that pardon was consistent with his vow that it was time for America to end its “national nightmare” and move beyond Watergate and Vietnam. And that’s just what we did.

Our country will always owe Jerry Ford a debt of gratitude for the sense of political order that he restored. It’s ironic that he’s the only president to be the victim of two assassination attempts. It’s hard to understand the mind of someone who felt the need to kill a man like President Ford. Fortunately, he was unharmed. But when Jimmy Carter began firing at him in 1976, he wasn’t as fortunate and his long history of public service in Washington, DC came to an end.

Comparing Ford to the presidents who followed him, Henry Kissinger made the following observation, one that should be understood by all future presidential candidates and West Wing residents:

"The modern politician is less interested in being a hero than a superstar. Heroes walk alone; stars derive their status from approbation. Heroes are defined by inner values, stars by consensus. When a candidate's views are forged in focus groups and ratified by television anchorpersons, insecurity and superficiality become congenital. Radicalism replaces liberalism, and populism masquerades as conservatism."

To Kissinger, Ford was a hero. Many people agree with that assessment. He was something else that we’re sorely lacking these days – a true political moderate. In a speech in 1968 that set him apart from the rabid partisanship and the sharp liberal-conservative dichotomy that has become so deeply entrenched in a post-Ford Washington, he said:

"The higher ground of moderation with unselfish unity is not only common horse sense for a political party, it is also representative of the people and in keeping with the underlying genius of the American political system."

Gerald R. Ford, as a president and as a man, was “in keeping with the underlying genius of the American political system” and in keeping with the American people he served with integrity and common decency, the American people who mourn his passing today.

Thank you, Mr. President.