Former President Ford Dead at 93
AP
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford , our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”
The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments – including an angioplasty – in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan , who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.
The full article is here.
Rest in Peace President Ford, the US President who first declared National Chess Day for the U.S. 30 years ago in 1976.
(here is Susan’s earlier blog link)
I never really liked Ford. Mostly because he wouldn’t meet with
Alexandre Scholenitzn because he was afraid of offending the Soviets. I always thought that was a scuzzy thing to do.
Rest in Peace. I am not fond of any American, really. Too many people think Americans are bad people.
US Presidents must have been all exceptionally good people. May he rest in peace.
The oldest ever US President
ever Rest In Peace.
It’ll be neat to see Carter,
Bush Sr., Clinton and President Bush sitting all together at the funeral.
R.I.P. President Ford.
In the public minds’ eye, you saved the American presidency following President Nixon’s 1974 resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal, much as the New York Yankees saved professional baseball in the 1920s following the 1919 Chicago Black Sox World Series fix/scandal.
Ford was a good man. In way over his head, but a good man nonetheless.
This is the best summary of Ford and his Presidency that I have read.
This article from The Wall Street Journal by Peggy Noonan is even better and worth saving permanently.
—QUOTE—
“There are three points about Ford that I’m not sure can ever be sufficiently appreciated.
“The first is that when he pardoned Richard Nixon, he threw himself on a grenade to protect the country from shame, from going too far. It was an act of deep political courage, and it was shocking….
“Second, Ford’s personal dignity–his plain Midwestern rectitude, his old-style, pipe-smoking American normality, and his characterological absence of bile, spite and malice–helped the nation over and through the great tearing of the fabric that was Watergate. This is often referred to, and yet it is hard to communicate what a relief it was. Whether right or wrong, hopeless or wise, a normal man was in charge. This was a balm, a real gift to the country.
“Third, he did not understand, and so was undone by, the rise of the modern conservative movement.
Read the full article here.