December 26, 2006

Another Great One Gone

He may have been a Ford, not a Lincoln, but he was a great man (his brief presidency and poor presidential campaign against someone who will never be great are but a fraction of his life, though it will be the most remembered fraction). Gerald Ford, dead at 93. It's a cliche, but we hardly knew him.

Posted by David at December 26, 2006 09:02 PM
Comments

I don't wish to speak ill of the dead, but James Brown would have been a better president than Gerald Ford turned out to be.

Posted by: H.L. Monkey at December 26, 2006 09:38 PM

Well, he would have been a funky president.

Posted by: Monkey David at December 26, 2006 10:56 PM

Did we hardly know Gerald Ford? I think Americans knew him well enough to turn him out in 1976. Of course, most Americans did not know Carter well enough to realize what a mistake they'd made, until it was too late. Steven Hayward is the go-to guy on Ford, in his intellectual biography, "The Age of Reagan: 1964-1980."

Posted by: H.L. Monkey at December 26, 2006 11:21 PM

OK, I guess he was a bastard and we're glad he's dead.

By the way, that "Funky President" was a reference to James Brown's "Funky President (People It's Bad)," a song about Ford.

Posted by: Monkey David at December 27, 2006 12:01 AM

Yeah, Ford was a bad president, but JB was Super Bad.

Posted by: Monkey RobbL at December 27, 2006 07:23 AM

Seriously, though, it's hard to imagine that anyone could have done a better job coming in after Nixon. He wasn't a great president, but the pardoning of Nixon, while questionable, certainly allowed the country to move on. Without President Ford, there would probably not have been a President Reagan.

Posted by: Monkey David at December 27, 2006 12:12 PM

By the way, if you're wondering who the third great one to pass is going to be, wonder no longer. It happened a week ago. Karl Strauss, master brewer, unabashed German, supporter of minor league hockey has passed after 94 happily drunken years.

Posted by: Poochucker at December 29, 2006 10:37 PM

NO!

Posted by: H.L. Monkey at December 29, 2006 11:26 PM
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