I confess, I'm too young to really know a great deal of the man, but I saw this on the news tonight and can't help but echo the general consensus.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Did anybody else think of the SNL skit "Gerald Ford, dead today..."?
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
RIP. Jerry Ford was just what the country needed after Nixon- a good man with boatloads of integrity. He will be missed.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
How unfair, when Jimmy Carter continues to poison the world.
Posted by Eduardo St. Elmo (Member # 9566) on :
Well, at least Mr. Ford will be unique in one aspect. He was the only American president that wasn't elected. It'll be a while before anyone will be able to duplicate that feat.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
He was elected. Just not to the presidency. He's not the only president who wasn't elected to the presidency. Look at LBJ.
He may be the only American president who wasn't elected to the executive branch, but he was definitely elected.
Posted by Eduardo St. Elmo (Member # 9566) on :
Ah, well. It appears I was misinformed then. My apologies.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
He was the greatest president never elected to the executive branch. (LBJ and other VP's were elected to that position. Ford was a replacement for Spiro Agnew, and was appointed as per terms of the relatively new Constitutional Amendment) In a time of political frustration and chaos, he was the nice guy who finished first.
So long Mr. Ford, butt of a thousand Chevy Chase jokes, almost-pro-football player (his choice), President for less than 1000 days. You may not be the greatest, or amongst the list of the greatest Presidents ever, but you were far, far, far from the worst.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Just to be clear, Gerald R. Ford was elected to Congress, where he served for 20 years before being appointed by President Nixon to take the place of Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who had to resign. Congress of course did vote to confirm his appointment, so he was elected in that sense. Then when Nixon resigned, Ford became president according to the succession spelled out in the Constitution. No vote was required.
One CBS newsman said that President Ford told Chevy Chase that he loved his spoofs of him. He thought they were hilarious. It appears then that Gerald R. Ford was not too full of himself, like some politicians tend to be, that he could not appreciate being the butt of a joke. He could laugh at himself, and it cost him nothing.
Some people maybe a little more mean-spirited, sometimes suggested that Ford played too many football games for the University of Michigan without a helmet. (In those days helmets were more like leather caps, not nearly as protective as modern helmets.) I think I heard that he played center, or at least was a lineman. U of M fans around here are especially proud of him.
He seemed to be a good man, and was the president the country needed, if only for two years.
Lisa, why do you have such an axe to grind over Jimmy Carter? Do you feel the Camp David Accords were a bad thing?
I am not defending Carter, necessarily. I voted for Ford. Carter was not a good administrator, and he did not see what the real problems were in America and the world--he tried to blame the bad economy on a general "malaise" affecting the people. Ronald Reagan turned the economy around dramatically when he took over for Carter.
But I respect Carter as a decent man, a man who was not a hypocrite about his faith. What did he do that was so terrible that you hate him, Lisa?
I mean, how could you hate a guy who was attacked by a killer rabbit while canoeing? (Secret Service agents had to beat the rabbit into submission.) This had to be one of the most hysterical things that has ever happened to a sitting president!
[ December 27, 2006, 01:34 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Have any of you seen the episode of the Simpsons where Bush senior moves into the neighborhood and flees after Bart scares him away? Gerald Ford moves in at the end of the episode and invites Homer over for football and nachos. I always found it interesting that the man who was never elected to the executive branch was far from our worst president.
So long sir, thank you for being more worried about forgiveness and healing rather then reelection. Thanks for telling New York to solve its own problems rather then simply bailing them out. I'm glad your would be assassin was too stupid to actually pull the slide that would have loaded the gun he aimed at you, and that the other was stopped by a good man. I'm especially glad that you did not have a mental breakdown from people trying kill you twice within a 17 day period. Best of luck.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Of course President Ford was safe--Tecumseh's Curse only applies to presidents elected in years that end in zero. The curse seems to be losing it's power in recent years. Reagan was shot, but recovered. And Bush just choked on a pretzel and passed out for a moment, but recovered.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lisa, why do you have such an axe to grind over Jimmy Carter? Do you feel the Camp David Accords were a bad thing?
Well, yes, of course, but Carter wasn't any worse than Clinton when it came to pressuring Israel to act against its own interests. Clinton was worse, actually, if only because he had twice as long to do it.
But Carter has been an annoying busybody since he got out of office, and continues to cause damage, while Clinton is merely preparing for a term as First Gentleman (and boy, are people going to choke using that term for him).
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: But I respect Carter as a decent man, a man who was not a hypocrite about his faith. What did he do that was so terrible that you hate him, Lisa?
He has no moral compass. But he has a tall podium. Such men are dangerous.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: I mean, how could you hate a guy who was attacked by a killer rabbit while canoeing? (Secret Service agents had to beat the rabbit into submission.) This had to be one of the most hysterical things that has ever happened to a sitting president!
I was rooting for the rabbit.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Actually Reagan and Bush were killed in office as Tecumseh's Curse demanded. But they were secretly replaced by robot clones run by the ISOB (International Society of Big-Feet.)
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Of course President Ford was safe--Tecumseh's Curse only applies to presidents elected in years that end in zero. The curse seems to be losing it's power in recent years. Reagan was shot, but recovered. And Bush just choked on a pretzel and passed out for a moment, but recovered.
Didn't Alvin get Tenska Tawa to remove that curse?
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
You must not have seen Tecumseh's Curse Part II: Tecumseh's Revenge. It had time travel. And it starred Bruce Cambell.
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Lisa, that wasn't a bad article about President Carter. It was pretty accurate, IMO. It lists many of the reasons why I so gladly voted for Reagan--twice. And that "Morning in America" campaign ad has gone done in the history of advertising as the best political ad ever. I heard a liberal democrat news commentators not long ago admit he got chills when he watched a recording of it, even after all these years.
Alvin who? OSC's Alvin?
Posted by Ron Lambert (Member # 2872) on :
Dan_raven, did it seem to you that President Bush was acting somewhat erratically during the recent solar flare?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
LBJ was elected President in 1964.
Of the nine Vice-Presidents who became President due to the President dying or leaving office, Andrew Johnson, John Tyler, Chester Arthur, Millard Filmore, and Gerald Ford were never elected President.
Lyndon Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman won a subsequent presidential election.
Ford is unique in that he was never elected President or Vice President.
[ December 27, 2006, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'd be more specific by saying he was the first President not elected by the people, but rather by proxy (well, theoretically ALL presidents are elected by proxy, but you know what I mean).
Edited due to a misread.
[ December 27, 2006, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Who has bashed him?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I just fixed it a second before you posted, actually, apparently at the exact same time.
I only breezed through the thread and missed the subject of ire.
Posted by Kasie H (Member # 2120) on :
I am impressed that we have a President that people respected, appreciated, and have trouble finding anything bad to say about, and he's also not one that people have been outrageously fond of. He's nobody's idol, but everybody respects him.
I guess that does make him my kind of idol.
Farewell President Ford.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
From the article,
quote:There, a decade after Chase left "SNL" and his stumbling Ford impersonation behind, Ford staged the last laugh: To open the second day's events, he stuck out his leg and tripped Chase
Beeeheeeheeeautiful.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
FARK.com quotes an article (in a decidedly pro-liberal organization) that says Rumsfeld and President Bush are both "unavailable" to attend President Ford's funeral.
Can we get a less biased confirmation on that before I start complaining how un-classy that would be?
Posted by fiddle_stix (Member # 9941) on :
my 9 year old niece asked me, "is he that guy that makes cars?"
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Not only did he never win a national election, he never won a state-level election.
-o-
My favorite scene in Hot Shots: Part Deux was one in which all of the living (at the time) ex-presidents are at the ground-breaking for some building or monument, ready to take the ceremonial first spadeful with their shovels, and a typical cheesy slapstick fest ensues, with presidents accidentally bashing each other on the head with shovels--and the only president who does not accidentally bash or get bashed is Ford--and then at the end of the scene, he goes down all by himself, without being hit by anything! That was why I love(d) Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker films: they are funny on several levels. Sure, there was the surface-level slapstick stuff, and a lot of people never realize that there is anything else going on, but there were other layers of funny underneath, which you only caught if you paid close attention, or if you watched more than once, and even then, only if you were culturally literate enough. The scene I describe has three different levels of joke going on in it.
Anyway, that had very little to do with Gerald Ford. I'm sorry that he's passed on, and I with his family the best.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Dan: I don't know about Rumsfeld, but at least the last article saying that on fark.com also mentioned that Bush'd be attending the service, just not the funeral itself (which is apparently being kept very low key).
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
That was why I love(d) Zucker-Abrahms-Zucker films: they are funny on several levels. Sure, there was the surface-level slapstick stuff, and a lot of people never realize that there is anything else going on, but there were other layers of funny underneath, which you only caught if you paid close attention, or if you watched more than once, and even then, only if you were culturally literate enough. The scene I describe has three different levels of joke going on in it.