It is typical of Americans to apologize for how we feel, speak, and act. It is not typical, however, to change our minds
when it comes to certain things, especially
politics.The passing of former
President Gerald Ford is an example of how we can admit our past mistakes, no matter how it may look, and how many of us will only admit how wrong we are when the final act is played out. Death and time sometimes hurry us along that path.
I remember as a teenager in the 1970s how events played out in the era of Watergate. As a young person I was not interested in politics and adult opinion. I saw the President of the United States as an untouchable, distant being who I could not truly question or comprehend. The office ofthe Presidency itself was a mystified, magical entity of which I was not equipped either academically or emotionally to judge or interpret. Thus it was that my friends and I did not understand the opinions of adults in those days, and how contradictory they were to what we were being taught. The truth was hard to come by, and we only asked not to be lied to.
Gerald Ford was one of those presidents who could not be evaluated by the true measure of the times. Adults everywhere were saying how he was ill-equipped both physically and mentally to handle the office in which he was eventually shoved. The jokes of his falling, his failure to convince during the debates, his questionable and eventual pardon of former President Nixon caused many of us to believe he was not fit to be a president. As young people we had our doubts at that point that any political leader could satisfy what we thought a President needed to be. Gerald Ford had not been elected to his office; in fact he hadn't even been elected to the Vice Presidency. These things played on our minds, especially as we prepared to reach voting age. The facts about what we would need to make our decisions on who we would vote for were not easy to understand because we did not fully comprehend how the game of politics was played. Only with the passing of time would this be possible.
Gerald Ford came to us in time where we needed a leader who could make us forget about the effects of power in politics. Partisanship is still strong and vibrant with us today, and somehow makes us sometimes forget how illogical and irrational we can be. It is well documented in interviews, some showing again recently on television, how Ford did not have ambitions to become President. His goals centered around the true nature of legislative power, the Congress, and becoming a powerful voice within that body. He was thrust into the public light by circumstances somewhat beyond his control and he reluctantly appeared ready to do his duty. When Nixon soon after resigned Ford found himself again being forced into a difficult position, one that he himself had to feel inadequte to fill. Imagine finding yourself awake one morning to the reality that you have been placed in the most powerful position in the world and what you would do with that power. Ford, however, did what he had always done; he buried himself into the work at hand and did the best job he could. He vetoed 48 bills and tried to fight inflation. He unsuccessfully fought against unemployment at a time when energy and gasolene were tearing apart the wallets and purses of many households. His pardoning of Nixon was quite controversial, but he stuck to his belief that this was necessary for America to move on. His was a presidency with no thanks, no lack of doubt, no relief from the pessimism of the press. His was ina lose-lose situation.
It is recalled that he lost a close race in 1976 to Jimmy Carter and that he politically made many mistakes that may have cost him that election. He had done his duty. He had served his country, and he stepped down from the White House and took his place in history. It is only with his death that that place is finally made known. He did what very few could have done. He sees to have asked no one for credit, pity or sympathy. He healed the country, got Americans to move on and then he himself moved on. Only now do we admit how we took Gerald Ford for granted. Recently in the papers you can read about how wrong people were about him. He was a great, if not President, American. He deserves his plaudits of the present for what he did in the past, and we should hope that he is given that and more for the future. Our country once again had been blessed with the kind of leader Gerald Ford was, and weshould hope that more of his nature take his example so that our country can continue to be the greatest country ever in the history of the world.